Child Development Services
The overall objective of child development services is to provide all children with a safe, nurturing, engaging, enjoyable, and secure learning environment. This ensures that they gain the awareness, skills, and confidence necessary to succeed in their present environment and in life.
PCA Head Start endorses the tenet that each child must be treated as an individual in an inclusive community that values, respects, and responds to diversity. The variety of experiences provided by the program support the continuum of children’s growth and development; including physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. The program’s approach to child development insures the developmental and linguistic appropriateness of children’s activities. PCA Head Start recognizes that children have individual rates of development as well as individual interests, temperaments, languages, cultural backgrounds and learning styles. Because of this, the Creative Curriculum is used to support classroom teachers in providing the most conducive environment for learning.
A variety of screening procedures are conducted within 45 calendar days upon your child’s entry into the program. All screenings are done in collaboration with the parents. The purpose of screening is to identify any parental or teacher concerns regarding a child’s development, sensory (visual and auditory), behavioral, motor, language, social, cognitive, perceptual, and emotional skills. Screening materials are linguistically and age appropriate – to the greatest extent possible we remain sensitive to the child’s cultural background.
