The U.S. Health and Human Service’s Administration for Children and Families has awarded YWCA Fort Worth & Tarrant County with a preliminary $900,000 grant to improve existing child care programs and expand access to high-quality care for infants and toddlers.
YWCA is the only preliminarily selected grant applicant in Tarrant County to receive funding to offer care and services to infants and toddlers through Early Head Start. Early Head Start programs support comprehensive mental, social and emotional development services for children from birth to age 3. Programs also provide children and their families with health, nutrition, social and other services. The YWCA’s three child development centers in Fort Worth and Arlington provide early childhood education for more than 600 children annually. Four out of five of these children are from homeless or low-income families. In 2013, the YWCA served 75 percent of children age 5 and under from emergency shelters or transitional housing at no cost to their parents.
“With this grant, the YWCA will be able to continue serving the most vulnerable children in our community and the quality of the care we offer will become even stronger,” said CEO Carol Klocek. “Research shows that the first three years of life are critical for brain development. By offering specialized low teacher-to-child ratios, instruction and intervention for these children, ensuring they are on track developmentally, the YWCA’s early childhood education program has the ability to change a lot of lives.” In addition to early childhood education, the YWCA also provides housing services including emergency shelter and community-based housing for more than 300 women and families experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness. The YWCA directly impacted 2,013 lives and assisted an additional 1,016 individuals through information and referrals in fiscal year 2014.
Betty Dillard bdillard@bizpress.net