YDI Early Childhood Division offers part day care for children age 3-5 during the school year and full day care (10 hours) during the summer months to support families in Bernalillo County.

This extension to the Head Start day offers exciting, high quality preschool learning and exploration concepts that focus on nutrition, health, safety, and, most importantly, school readiness.  Children can explore, experiment, problem solve, and create with open play, music and movement, art, physical fitness, reading, writing, math, science, and outdoor activities.

Head Start supports families facing difficult circumstances and seeks to mitigate obstacles to learning in the early years.

Flash forward 50 years, President Barack Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address called for more focused and dedicated work to ensure vulnerable children and families have access to high-quality care and education in their earliest years. His FY2016 budget, included a commitment to expand and strengthen child care and early education programs, specifically increasing the duration of Head Start to a full school day and year. Clearly, providing early learning opportunities for at-risk children has become not only a focal point for lawmakers but a shared national commitment.

What makes the whole child and whole family model so powerful? Nobel-prize winning economist James Heckman has suggested that the social-emotional development cultivated by programs may be the true contributor to long-term impacts and health benefits which range from decreased child mortality to adult health behaviors. Furthermore, an additional motivator behind children’s success through elementary school and beyond are very likely parents. By helping families who are struggling with poverty and other socio-economic challenges achieve their goals for education, employment, and housing, Head Start plays a transformative role across two generations.