SafeStart Expands

In a competitive bid for Recovery Funds available through the US Department of Health & Human Services, CSC was awarded $1,028,000 to expand its Early Head Start/SafeStart program by an additional 24 children in Allentown, PA. $500,000 of the grant is earmarked for new construction.

Early Head Start/SafeStart provides early intervention to assist development of infants and toddlers who have suffered abuse or neglect. This is a unique day program provided collaboratively with the Children and Youth Departments of Lehigh and Northampton counties. The additional 24 children will be supported in part by Lehigh County, whose focus is also on prevention.
Like all Head Start programs, staff work with both children and their parents or other care givers (some reside in foster care). County case workers are intensely involved with both parents and children as well, working together with CSC on behalf of child well being, child safety and permanence of living environment.

Extensive research shows that CSC’s Early Head Start/SafeStart program mitigates the worst effects of infant/toddler trauma and prevents further abuse and neglect. As studies show, all children resolve some symptoms and 26% of children resolve all symptoms. At age 3, the children enroll in Head Start until kindergarten. About 60% of them are considered on-age developmentally at this time as compared to 12% who enter Head Start without previous interventions.

Low child-teacher ratios, special therapeutic interventions, year round daily programming including transportation, home visits, and other intense work with parents characterize SafeStart. Only one other center-based collaborative program between County Welfare Departments and Early Head Start exists in the country.

“Our collaboration with Lehigh’s Children and Youth has been especially productive because our goals match so closely,” said Paula Margraf, Executive Vice President of CSC and Director of Head Start/Early Head Start of the Lehigh Valley.

Expanded enrollment will begin March 2010 in the Fowler Building on CSC’s Donley Children’s Campus in East Allentown. Plans are underway to demolish an aging building on the campus to make way for a new, uniquely focused family-infant-toddler center whose aim, like Early Head Start/SafeStart will be to stop the cycle of abuse and neglect, helping parents to be safe and supportive, and their children to develop normally and successfully.

Nationally, 75% of deaths attributed to abuse and neglect occur to children age 3 and under. The earliest possible intervention is best for all at-risk children.
Developmental delays, teacher ratios, infant-toddler mental health services, and special sensory, speech and physical therapy add to the cost of this special program. However, if problems are resolved early, society is spared a life-time of costs as early as kindergarten when the child exhibits academic, emotional, social, and physical challenges promulgated by years of neglect.
In bald economic terms, it’s a matter of “pay now or pay much more later,” said Jane Ervin, CEO/President of CSC.