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The Community Action Organization of Erie County, Inc. Head Start/Early Head Start program administers the CAO Direct Run Program which serves eight hundred ninety-nine (899) preschool chldren. The program serves children at seventeen centers located thoughout the cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna, the Towns of Holland, Springville, Getzville, Derby, Gowanda and Blasdell.
In addition to the seventeen direct run sites, the Community Action Organization also delegates two programs to the Bethel Head Start and Holy Cross Head Start Programs, which serve one thousand, eighty six (1,086) children in Buffalo, Amherst, the City of Tonawanda, Town of Tonawanda, Cheektowaga, Depew/Lancaster and Akron, New York.
Head Start provide infant/toddler and preschool services in seventy-six learning environments and classrooms at administrative offices and centers located at over thirty five sites. Sixty percent of our classes are half-day, the remaining are either full-day, full year or extended day sessions. In addition, service are provided to the community of Holland with a home-based option.
The Early Head Start Program serves children ages 0 to 3 years. Services are offered through center and home based options with through collaboration with Buffalo Public Schools, the YWCA, and Children's/Kalieda Hospital.
Collaboration is a major key to the Early Childhood Department's continued success. Besides YWCA and Kaleida, our partnerships with human services programs to jointly operate Head Start experiences include:
- BOCES (Depew Center),
- Gateway-Longview, Inc. (Friendship and Bowmansville),
- SUNY and Summit (UB Center),
- Heritage Center Program (Central),
- Memorial Temple (Memorial Temple Site),
- Frontier Universal Pre-K (Frontier Site),
- Buffalo Public Schools Universal Pre-K (Bethel, CAO Classrooms, and Holy Cross),
- Reading is Fundamental (RIF) (Early Head Start and adolescent parents), and
- Buffalo Hearing and Speech (which provides services in several of our sites)
Speech therapists and special education teachers work directly in the classrooms and with our teachers to enrich our language development services. Additionally, more than 25 collaborators work with us to provide the BMHC program.
Eligibility
- Head Start/Early Head Start – At least 90% of the children and families must be low income (meaning at or below the federally designated poverty level) and at least 10% (we service 16%) of our children must have diagnosed disabilities.
- Early Head Start – Parents must be twenty years of age or under, in school, working or in job training, and have children ages prenatal to three years.
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