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Community Partnership for Child Development
CPCD, the Head Start grantee in El Paso County, currently serves more than 1,500 children, under the age of five, and families within El Paso County in four early childhood programs: Head Start, Early Head Start, Colorado Preschool Program, Early Childhood Development Program. The organization strives to provide high quality, comprehensive early childhood development programs which offer a broad range of services and respond to the needs of young children and their families for the purpose of preparing them for success in school and life. The end goal may be preparing our children for success in school and life; however, there are many factors that play into our mission.
Many children enrolled in our programs come from low-income families that may struggle to meet their family's most basic needs, such as food and warm clothing. CPCD offers a holistic approach to helping these children and families attain self-sufficiency. In addition to classroom activities that are interactive and age appropriate, CPCD offers a wide range of health services, including health, dental, and vision screenings upon enrollment, and children with special needs receive needed therapy in an inclusive classroom setting. After all, a child who is not distracted by health problems is ready to learn. Additionally, each CPCD family works closely with a family advocate, who works in a social work type position.
Spanish speaking families are paired with a bilingual family advocate to better meet the personal needs of the family and to connect the family with outside community resources. Head Start is CPCD's largest and most well known program, and other CPCD early childhood programs are closely modeled after Head Start.
Oftentimes, the communication needs of a Spanish speaking child in an
early childhood development program vary dramatically from their English
speaking classmates. Therefore, CPCD tailors its programs and services
to meet the needs of our monolingual and bilingual Spanish families.
Significant research has shown that monolingual and bilingual Spanish speaking children fall behind academically and socially, compared with their English counterparts, when only Spanish is spoken in the home and English is only spoken at school. These children often blend and confuse terminology between the two languages, and this often is reflected in their schoolwork performance. A child is more relaxed and eager to learn when they feel emotionally secure and supported in both languages.
Therefore, CPCD hires a large number of bilingual Spanish/English speaking employees to work with the children in both languages. CPCD children are never pressured into speaking English, but rather they learn from their bilingual classroom staff by observing behavior and gaining exposure to the English language. This "parallel process" gently encourages children to learn and understand the English language, while also continuing to embrace their heritage and language.
The end result: children, regardless of their primary language, are ready to learn and be successful in school and life.
As their child's first and most important teacher, parents must have their own educational needs supported in order to fulfill this role in their child's life. Therefore, CPCD provides a great deal of education and support for our families through the Family Literacy Program. ESL classes are provided for families at no cost. Both children and their families benefit when the entire family is learning English at the same time. Children are prepared to be successful in school, parents are oftentimes better able to provide for their families through employment, and entire families are able to prosper in our society. In addition to ESL and GED preparation programs, training's are offered for parents on topics including continuing education, emergent literacy, and accessing community resources.
Nearly 500 of our 1,500 children and families are from Hispanic or Latino origin, the second largest demographic group served by CPCD. Additionally, 11% of CPCD families report their primary spoken language is Spanish. As the Hispanic population in Southern Colorado continues to boom, so does the number of Spanish speaking families who are enrolled in CPCD programs. We have seen a steady increase in the number of Hispanic families enrolling in our programs over the last few years. Understandably, bilingual Spanish employees are essential for continuing to offer high quality comprehensive services for our Hispanic children and families. If readers would like to learn more about CPCD's career opportunities, please advise them to call 635-1536 or visit our Web site at www.cpcdheadstart.org
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