As part of the war on poverty, the Head Start program was created in 1965.  It was designed to narrow the gap between disadvantaged and more privileged children as they entered kindergarten, by providing a high-quality preschool education to improve children’s school readiness.  Head Start is about more than early childhood education.  The social service and parental involvement components of the program are vitally important to the success of children and families.  This is the key tenet that sets the Head Start program apart from other preschool programs

The TCCAA Head Start Program is funded to serve 181 pre-school children, ages three to five, in the predominantly rural communities of Halifax and Mecklenburg counties in the South Central Region of Virginia.  Our goal is to give children a head start in preparing them for kindergarten and providing a valuable resource to empower families and help them become self-sufficient.

According to former Governor, Robert L. Ehrlich,  “ Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don’t begin thinking about education in these early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start kindergarten.”  Decades of research have documented the impacts of Head Start. Findings show that children who participate in Head Start programs receive countless benefits. These impacts appear immediately, last a lifetime, and even benefit the subsequent generation.