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Head Start is never just early education. For infants, toddlers and young children, it’s often the first place a caregiver’s stress gets noticed and held, where a mental health consultant sits with an educator to support understanding and responding to a child’s behavior or a home visitor connects with a parent who needs support with their mental health needs. This relational work is the program, not an add-on.

The proposed rule to rescind and replace the Head Start Program Performance Standards would gut this. Mental health services, comprehensive screening, and staff-to-child ratios all disappear under the new standards– and with them, the conditions that make co-regulation, building healthy attachement, and early relational health possible. Babies and young children can’t wait for a delayed referral or a caseload too large to notice them. Their development happens now, in relationships.

The Massachusetts Babies Coalition stands with the MA Head Start Association and the Head Start community across the Commonwealth. We know that stripping these standards doesn’t reduce the burden – it moves the burden onto babies who can’t advocate for themselves, the caregivers holding them and the Head Start workforce who daily works on behalf of promoting early relational wellbeing.

Public comments are essential! They’re due October 6. Anyone can submit a Public Comment sharing why the changes would hurt children, families, programs, and communities

–Aditi Subramaniam, Director, IECMH Policy