1726 Family Emergency Assistance - Through the Family Emergency Assistance program, the Prevention and Protection Services Commission provides benefits to families in which children are at risk of abuse or neglect, out of home placement, or institutionalization. For details of the FEA program, refer to the Prevention and Protection Services Policy and Procedures Manual.
1727 Child Care Grants - Child care grants are not available at this time. Loans may be available through First Children's Finance-Kansas, a division of Development Corporation for Children.
1728 Kansas Early Head Start Initiative - Kansas Early Head Start (KEHS) is a child development program offered to pregnant women and children up to age 4. Families enrolled in KEHS receive comprehensive child development services, but must be attending school, working, or participating in a job-training program to qualify for no cost child care .
The purpose of this program is to enhance children's physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development; to support parents' efforts to fulfill their parental roles; and to help parents move toward self-sufficiency.
Kansas Early Head Start offers children and families comprehensive child development services through center-based, home-based, and combination program options. Children and families enrolled in center-based programs receive comprehensive child development services in a center-based child care setting, supplemented with home visits by the Early Head Start Home Visitor. The center-based teacher accompanies the home visitor at least twice a year in the child's home. In home-based settings children and their families are supported through weekly home visits and bi-monthly group socializations.
Programs participating in this effort ensure quality by meeting the requirements in the Head Start Performance Standards; they provide early individualized child development and parent education services to low-income families according to a plan developed jointly by parents and staff; they provide early opportunities for infants and toddlers with and without disabilities to grow and develop together in nurturing and inclusive settings; they work with families who are unemployed to either return to school, enter a TANF approved training or seek employment; they respond to the needs of families, including the need for full-time child care for working families; they connect with service providers at the local level to ensure that a comprehensive array of health, nutrition, and other services is provided to the program's pregnant women, children, and families.
Through a federal partnership each of the KEHS programs receive federal funding for technical and training assistance (T/TA). It is from these T/TA dollars that KEHS programs provide training to child care providers with whom they have a partnership agreement. This includes the Child Development Associate (CDA) that child care partners are required to obtain. The CDA is a national credentialing program to improve the quality of child care . Candidates must complete coursework, prepare a portfolio, and take a final assessment before they are awarded this certificate. The KEHS programs partner with existing child care providers in their community to enhance the quality of care for all children in the provider's care, and to offer choice of child care settings to enrolled families. (See 3330.5 regarding EHS as a work component.)