Developing effective partnerships and goal-directed relationships with families is a critical part of supporting family well-being and children's school readiness. Research shows that children have better outcomes when parents have adequate resources, live in safe home environments that support learning and development, and provide active and intentional learning experiences. These conditions result in children who are more likely to perform better upon entry to kindergarten and show resilience throughout childhood and adolescence. There are over 25,000 family services staff and supervisors and over 7,000 home visitors who work with families in HS and EHS programs. Local agencies have established different qualifications for family services staff and supervisors, ranging from a Masters of Social Work or other graduate degrees to family development credentials (www.nhsa.org). The Defenese industry has used its significant power to try and convince Congress to protect defense spending from cuts and if they succeed, all 1.2 trillion in cuts would be borne by non-defense spending. This would mean that the Head Start cuts would cause over 200,000 children to be dropped from this program.
