Early Childhood Development

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The trend in Early Childhood Education throughout our country is to develop a program that promotes a high quality learning environment that a high quality early childhood program must provide a safe and nurturing environment that promotes the physical, social, emotional, language, and cognitive development of young children while responding to the needs of families. It is our goal to provide experiences and opportunities that will allow the appropriate and effective development of these areas through intentional and responsive teaching. A highly functioning classroom can be characterized by the three Cs. They are Curiosity, Creativity and Collaboration. Young children should always be provided experiences and activities that provide opportunities to ask questions, explore, wonder and ponder.

Creativity is brought into the classroom through allowing children to feel secure and not controlled; ensuring them to have confidence to try new things. Teaching/Caregiving staff should always collaborate with children and their families as they reflect on their interest; and then plan for children’s learning. We shall constantly ignite conversations and actions to promote their development. We shall constantly observe, assess, analyze, and seek innovative strategies to reach them. We shall strive to project the most focus to our children; we shall constantly plan and prepare for our children, asking ourselves…How are the children doing?

Health Services

Health services focus on preventing health problems whenever possible by carefully addressing the needs of enrolled children and pregnant women. We work hard to make sure that children have an ongoing source of health care that can be accessed long after a child leaves Head Start. The health of our children is one of our primary concerns. At Friends of Children of MS, Inc., we assist parent in scheduling for physical exams, vision and hearing screenings, as well as developmental and mental health screenings. We promote proper handwashing, oral health care and nutrition.

We serve eligible pregnant women in our program by helping pregnant moms get the support they need for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. Both the expecting mom and the unborn baby need regular prenatal care, a healthy diet, exercise and to avoid stress, alcohol or other harmful substances. The Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) curriculum guides this program to include home visits to ensure moms-to-be get the information and support they need. Once the baby is born, he or she is automatically enrolled in one of our Early Head Start program.

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Child and Health Safety

Health and safety practices provide the foundation on which we build quality early care and education settings. Quality care is the foundation to optimal learning and healthy development opportunities throughout all learning domains inclusive of physical health and well-being and motor development. Quality care can be achieved with consistent, basic health and safety practices in place.

In partnership with families, efforts will be applied to improve the health and safety of their early learning and development settings to achieve quality care.

Adhering to State health licensing requirements; as well as fostering the guidance of Caring for Our Children Basics: Health and Safety Foundations for Early Care and Education will establish a common framework in implementing health and safety practices. Effective implementation of health and safety practices will support continuous quality improvement to move to higher levels of quality and improve the overall health and well-being of all children and families.

A Health Advisory Committee will also assist in the implementation of a well-rounded safe and healthy environment. Orientation, training, and ongoing supervision will be conducted to assure health and safety practices. In addition, this approach will support efficiency and effectiveness of monitoring systems for early care in achieving a more consistent and paramount foundation for quality upon which staff and families can rely.

Nutrition Services

We ensure children receive nutritious meals while attending the Head Start program that meet a significant portion of their daily nutritional needs. Our goal is to provide families with positive nutrition that can be reinforced at home. Nutrition health enhances our ability to learn. For the young child, it means enriching their quality of life and enhancing their potential contributions to society. The ultimate goals of nutrition services is to achieve this through the provision of a variety of nutritious meals, teaching children to make healthy choices, nutritional assessment and counseling, nutrition education to the entire family, empowering and educating parents so they can make health choices for themselves and their children.

By providing nutrition services that supplement and complement those in the home and community, we will assist families in meeting each child’s nutritional needs and in establishing good eating habits that nurture healthy development and promotes life – long well-being. In order to accomplish this mission the following goals are outlined:

Work with families to identify the nutritional needs of children.
Meet the nutritional needs and feeding requirements of each child including those with special dietary needs or disabilities.
Support families with nutrition by providing educational opportunities to develop new skills and information for preparing nutritious meals at home.
Ensure that children and staff eat together within a socializing experience in a relaxed atmosphere.
Provide opportunities for the involvement of children in activities related to meal service (i.e. family style services) and activities that involve preparation of some food they eat (i.e. help prepare the salad in the unit, etc.).
Adhere to all applicable food safety and sensation laws.
Making sure that food is not used as punishment or reward, and children are encouraged but not forced to eat or taste.

Mental Health

We focus on building collaborative relationships among children, families, staff, mental health professionals and the community to enhance awareness and understanding of mental wellness. We provide services and referrals to children and families to address mental health needs. FCM, Inc. has adopted to alter the stigma associated with mental health to a topic that is embraceable and understood. We promote an approach that allows total optimal opportunities to generate healthy child mental health. The program’s environment is fostered through wellness promotion. This is a promotion to support a program wide culture that promotes children’s mental health, social and emotional well-being, and overall health. The goal being to communicate this philosophy to staff, parents, and local partners.

We approach mental health as a part of overall health. The Mental Health Coordinator along with the Mental Health Consultant work with teachers/caregivers, family service staff in coordination with other service area staff, local school districts, parents, and community parents to provide an array of services for Head Start/Early Head Start children, families and pregnant women.

The child mental health service area supports a program – wide culture that promotes children and families mental health, social and emotional well-being, and overall health. Wellness promotion is recognized as the ultimate goal as it will assure that all children’s social and emotional well-being and behavior health is developed in a high quality learning environment. We foster effective social and emotional development; as mental health is social and emotional well-being; and its healthy development in young children is key to school readiness.

We also recognize the different approaches to Infant and toddler mental health and child/preschool mental health; as plans are continuous in developing staff to these developmental differences. The trend in our program shows that the preschool years deliver the most challenging behaviors among our children. These behaviors may require more intense planning redirection. It is the programs’ intent to provide support to children/families experiences such behaviors. In order to provide this support, we have selected to follow the US Department of Health and Human Services US Department of Education Policy Statement on Expulsion and Suspension Policies in Early Childhood Settings. This joint policy provides Guiding Principles used in developing an age appropriate guidance and discipline policy

Click here to find out more information on the Policy on Limitations on Suspension and Prohibition on Expulsion.

Disability Services

We are committed to working with families to ensure that their children, including those with significant disabilities, receive the comprehensive services needed to meet their developmental, health, and social needs. Specially trained teachers and staff provide services to children with disabilities and their families. It is our intention to make sure that children with disabilities receive the guidance and expectation of services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and their families receive all pertinent program services delivered in the least restrict environment and that they participate in all program activities. Best practices have also employed us to individually plan for children who may be at risk, but not meeting the eligible criteria for services under IDEA. Furthermore, we believe that our classrooms are the ideal place for children with disabilities to begin to socialize with their peers in a setting of acceptance and inclusion. We recognize that parents are their children’s primary teachers and nurturers; which allows us to engage parents in their children’s learning and development that lead to successful school readiness. This is approach is holistic as it integrates with all other services areas in promoting children to develop to their highest potential. Our partnerships with local schools and other relevant community partners supports the individual plans for our children with disabilities. We provide for the full inclusion of children with disabilities as regulated by Head Start Program Performance Standards and the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 2004; along with the Every Student Succeeds Act. Friends of Children of MS, Incorporated has a long standing history of serving disabled children with mild, moderate, and severe disabilities.

I don’t have a dis-ability. I have a different-ability ~ Robert M. Hensel