Online Event: The Head Start and Continuum of Care Forum – Feb 23

Posted by People's Emergency Center (PEC) on February 1, 2022

A new report, Homeless Housing and Head Start Systems Working Together, prepared by Pennsylvania Head Start State Collaboration Office, Dr. Grace Whitney, and People’s Emergency Center, contains new information on children and families enrolled in Head Start who are experiencing homelessness and seeking housing assistance, in Pennsylvania. It includes Head Start data for the 2018-2019 program year (school year). This report also presents these Head Start data for each of Pennsylvania’s 16 Continuum of Care (CoC) regions. (See item in New Resources section of this Update: New Report: Homeless Housing and Head Start Systems Working Together.)

To explore this report, the Pennsylvania Head Start State Collaboration Office and PEC are organizing a forum to offer insight from local leadership from rural, suburban, and urban regions. The forum is set for Wednesday, February 23, 10 AM to 11:30 AM.

The forum will feature a panel of practitioners discussing strategies to increase enrollment and new data showing the prevalence of children experiencing homelessness enrolled into Head Start, according to the CoC regions. Moderators include Tracy Duarte, Director of the PA Head Start State Collaboration Office, and Joe Willard of People’s Emergency Center.

Panelists will include:

• Tiffany Jones of the Center for Community Action, which covers Bedford / Huntingdon / Fulton counties in the Eastern PA Continuum of Care and in the Early Learn Resource Center (ELRC) #6.
• Tabitha Kramer of Region 2 of the Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness. Region 2 covers Berks, Chester, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, and Schuylkill counties. Region 2 identifies more children experiencing homelessness than any other region in Pennsylvania.
• A leader from the ELRC #18 (Philadelphia) to be named.
• A local Head Start agency to be named.

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