W.A.C.O.G. Yuma West Head Start Center
Preschool in Yuma, AZ 85364
Head Start is a comprehensive early childhood education program for pre-school age children whose families meet current Department of Health and Human Services income eligibility guidelines.
The program offers a broad range of individualized services in the areas of education and child development, special education, health services, nutrition, parent/family development.
In addition, the range of Head Start services is responsive and appropriate to each family’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage.
Serving western Arizona for over three decades, WACOG Head Start has a long tradition of delivering high quality services designed to enhance the healthy development of children. The primary focus of WACOG Head Start is children and their families. It is the program’s mission to provide the foundation for the development of self-sufficient, healthy, caring and productive children and families. It is Head Start’s role to ensure the provision of opportunities of parents to become active participants in their children’s growth and development. Children’s ‘social competence’ is an overall goal of the program and is defined as a child’s everyday effectiveness in dealing with the responsibilities that attend both school life and home life. Social competence also takes into account a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development, and how these aspects are interrelated.
- Child Ages:
- 3 years - 5 years
- Licenses & Accreditations:
- Arizona Department of Health Services Division of Licensing Services
- Special Needs:
- Children meeting disabilities eligibility criteria and enrolled in WACOG Head Start receive the full range of child development/educational, mental health, health, dental, nutritional, parent involvement and social services provided to all enrolled children. Head Start has a specific mandate to recruit and enroll income-eligible children and children with disabilities who are most in need of services, including children with severe disabilities. Head Start coordinates with the PEA and other groups to benefit children with disabilities and their families. Furthermore, Head Start is committed to fiscal support to assure the services needed by Head Start children with disabilities will be provided in full, either directly or by a combination of Head Start funds and other resources.
- Preschool:
- Yes
- Hours of Operation:
- Monday-Thursday 8:00am - 2:00pm
Want more information?
- Classroom Ratios
- Director and Teaching Staff Bios
- Course and Teaching Material
- Menus, Activities, and more...
The overall objective of child development services is to provide all children with a safe, nurturing, engaging, enjoyable and secure learning environment in order to help them gain the awareness, skills and confidence necessary to succeed in their present environment and in life.
WACOG 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 the physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of each child. The program’s approach to child development insures the developmental and linguistic appropriateness of children’s activities; and recognizes children have individual rates of development as well as individual interests, temperaments, languages, cultural backgrounds and learning styles.
This is accomplished through the use of comprehensive curricula materials, including the use of various materials, activities and experiences that support a broad range of children’s prior experiences, maturation rates, learning styles, needs, cultures and interests.
A variety of screening procedures are conducted within 45 calendar days of children’s entry into the program and done in collaboration with 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 and to the greatest extent possible, sensitive to the child’s cultural background.