‘It is everything’: Parents, advocates say Head Start offers more than child care

Tiffany Awortwi watched her three daughters enjoy a sunny day at a playground in Omaha recently.

She even jumped in to help them build a sand castle and push them on a modern-looking merry-go-round.

Awortwi’s youngest child, Naomi, is currently enrolled in a Head Start program in Omaha. Her older three, including a teenage son, all graduated from Head Start programs. She said she loves seeing what her kids learn, from shapes and songs to cultivating relationships.

“But also just the day the teachers share with me about my kids. Naomi has been in a program since birth, since seven months,” Awortwi said. “Her walking, celebrating those milestones with us, with me, was a happy thing.”

In early May, Nebraska Head Start parents, teachers and other advocates rallied at the state capitol in support of the program. A draft proposal of President Donald Trump’s skinny budget had put the federally funded Head Start program on the chopping block. The official proposal kept funding for the program, but Head Start educators, supporters and parents, like Awortwi, say Nebraskans need to know how detrimental the loss of the program could have been.

“It's our lifeline,” Awortwi said. “It’s lifelines for many families. It's lifeline for the workforce. It's lifeline for your community. It's a lifeline for our children's well being.”

Head Start has the capacity to serve 5,500 children in the state, according to First Five Nebraska.

Elizabeth Everett, deputy director and chief lobbyist for First Five Nebraska, said even though the program avoided elimination, she is still concerned about what funding for the program will look like in the next fiscal year.

The Trump administration is proposing Congress fund Head Start at its current funding levels with no increase, which the program typically gets. Everett said this will stunt the program.

“What that means is that they're not going to be able to provide any additional services for more kids that might be eligible, they won't be able to do any cost of living increases for the educators that support Head Start,” she said. “For us as advocates, that's not a good sign. We really want to see an increase in funding for Head Start, just because that service is so comprehensive, and it provides supports, not only for children, but also families that need it.”

Everett said she expects Congress will release the appropriations proposal for Head Start in the next couple weeks. President Trump officially requested Early Head Start and Head Start get no increase in his proposal for the next fiscal year.

In Nebraska, there's a nearly 16% gap between how many child care spots are needed and how many spots there are, according to data from the Buffett Early Childhood Institute.

State Sen. Jason Prokop, who is also executive director for First Five Nebraska, said without Head Start, that gap would grow to 19%.

“It would be a crisis,” he said. “To be frank, there's already a child care capacity gap in the state. We don't have enough child care to meet the needs of working families.”

Prokop said Head Start’s impact extends farther than child care. It helps families access health care services. The program also brings jobs to communities, and allows parents to work.

“It's ripple effects. It's for that child's healthy, educational, social emotional development, and for that family's ability to work and participate fully in the workforce,” Prokop said. “Then, that has ripple effects on a community for those very same reasons, where the community is not going to be able to be as strong as if there was access to high-quality early childhood education in that community.”

‘There really is no compromise’

About three-quarters of children under 6 in Nebraska have both parents in the workforce, according to Lisa Knoche, a research professor in the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

She said from birth to 8 years old is a crucial time for a child’s development. Kids learn gross motor skills, cognitive skills and social skills, among other lessons.

“There’s language skills that are developed. ‘How do I talk to my friends,” Knoche said. “How do I start to make any kind of sounds that would be communicative with those around me?”

Knoche said having quality early childhood experiences — which include quality interactions with others and quality settings meant for a child — can result in positive outcomes throughout elementary and high school all the way through adulthood.

“There really is no compromise in this space,” Knoche said. “We need to be thoughtful and intentional, dedicate resources and supports to create optimal experiences. The payoff is significant. The payoff will be a healthy, productive group of citizens that can move us into the future.”

Jennifer Malone, associate director for Early Head Start at the Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative in Douglas county, said kids need consistency.

“Kids need predictability,” Malone said. “They need connection, and our relationships and our routines allow us to do that, and the training that the teachers get, we get to provide that in a very high-quality manner.”

The program Malone helps run serves 280 children across seven sites in Douglas county.

About 28% of Nebraskans live in areas with few or no child care options. There are 10 counties without any providers, all in rural areas of the state.

More than child care

In addition to child care and early education services, Head Start helps families with other health services, like dental and vision. Malone said they also offer support for children with disabilities and dual language learners, as well as their families.

“The way that I explain it to people is like, we really wrap our arms around the family and the child,” Malone said.

More than 3,800 children received preventive oral health care in Nebraska in the 2024 program year, according to federal Head Start data.

Echo Woyak had two children graduate from Head Start and is trying to enroll her third child in the program. She lives in Terrytown between Scottsbluff and Gering. Woyak said Head Start provided more than an education — the program helped her with dental and vision care for her kids.

“Honestly, it is everything,” Woyak said. “I was a single mother for a while. I would have drowned without the extra help that I've gotten, without the learning that my kids got, the food, the bus, the extra appointments. They even put medicine on their teeth. My daughter had cavities, and they put some medicine on her teeth so that the cavities wouldn't grow until I could get her into a dentist. As a poor, single mother at the time, I just didn't have the extra money sometimes for food or for medicine for her teeth that I got for free from the program.”

Woyak said the program helped her find and access these resources without feeling like a failure to her kids.

“On top of that, it's socialization for the kids, structure and learning for the kids,” Woyak said. “Those extra things — the dental, the vision, the mental health — just all that help that we have. I don't know if my children and I would have survived without this extra help that we got from the Head Start program.”

Medicaid

Medicaid covers almost 30% of Nebraska children, with a third under 6 years old, according to First Five Nebraska.

Everett said she’s concerned with how Medicaid changes can potentially impact programs like Head Start.

Some of the changes could mean families have to be redetermined for health care every six months instead of once every year, and take time to prove they are working, she said.

“If you just imagine yourself as maybe a single mom with kids at home or something like that, having to do all these additional steps just to get services that you already qualify for that you did not have to do beforehand, it's going to become a lot more burdensome for those families to keep up with,” Everett said.

While families can get help to enroll in Medicaid through Head Start, Everett added that those additional requirements will put more work on employees.

“If I'm a new Head Start employee coming in and realizing, ‘Oh my gosh, there's all this stuff that I have to do,’” Everett said. “In addition to keeping up with all the Head Start requirements, but at the same time, Medicaid now has all these additional requirements, most often than not, there's going to be people that are going to get lost through the cracks.”

Awortwi in Omaha said her children are not currently on Medicaid, but she worries about their friends who are and how much they benefit from health care.

“Then you talk about the decline of health, the decline of their nutritional values, like everything just kind of goes downhill from there. It's devastating,” Awortwi said. “It's devastating to our society. It's devastating to our workforce as well. You got more sick kids out and more problems that can occur that will affect the workforce as well, too.”

A world without Head Start

Awortwi sees the impact Head Start had on her children and her family every day. She said her kids who have already graduated from Head Start have stayed on track with their learning.

“Without Head Start, I wouldn't be able to make the gains I've made in my career. I wouldn't be able to go back to school,” she said. “I wouldn't have a safe place to have Naomi right now in school.”

Malone with Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative shared similar sentiments. She said the loss of Head Start would only hurt families.

“You'd have a loss of jobs, you'd have people having to choose between making a living and sending their child, probably somewhere safe that they know and trust and love,” Malone said. “You'd probably see a decrease in kids being ready for school. I mean, you can talk about the positive ripple effect, but then the opposite happens, if you take it away, then all of those things, that ripple effect is, it's evident.”