Jeff Hild, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Administration for Children & Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, shares a moment with a child in the Educare Chicago early learning center during an Oct. 17 visit to the South Side facility. Start Early, which oversees Educare Chicago, plans to open a facility in Lake County, which has been labeled a child care desert. (Photos by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

An early childhood program on Chicago’s South Side will be expanding into Lake County in hopes of filling a need.

Start Early, which runs Educare Chicago, a birth-to-age-5 early learning program on the South Side, will be using a $6.3 million federal grant to expand into Lake County.

“There is an early child care desert in Lake County,” Diana Rauner, president of Start Early, said at an Oct. 17 announcement of the grant.

Lake is considered a child care desert because 70 percent of young children – nearly 10,000 families – in the county are living at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($31,200 for a family of four) and do not have access to publicly funded early learning and care programs and services.

Rauner, the wife of former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, said the Educare curriculum is designed to build every part of students’ young lives and to support their families.

“Like every Head Start (program), we are deeply invested in both cognitive and academic development, but also health, wellness, social/emotional learning, family development and all of the developmental services that families need,” Rauner said.

Vital service

Lisa LaRue, a Head Start teacher’s assistant at Educare Chicago for 17 years, said the South Side center’s work educates the whole child to succeed in school and in life.

“Head Start programs prioritize children with socio-economic disadvantages that can hold them back,” LaRue said. “The focus is on addressing their needs by providing a variety of health, nutrition and well-being services.

“Expanding Head Start is vital so we can give more families access to high-quality early learning … I have learned when you help a child, you help the community.”

Lisa LaRue, a Head Start teacher assistant at Educare Chicago for 17 years, talks about the South Side’s center work to educate the whole child.

LaRue was one of the teachers who 10 years ago helped start the center’s Kindergarten Corner, helping children and families ease jitters about kindergarten and setting them up for success in the next chapters of their life.

When LaRue saw children having a hard time transitioning to nap time, she came up with the idea to hold a teddy bear drive to get all 144 children in the program a teddy bear of their own.

Educare staff and board members answered the call and children each received a bear.

“I still remember the smiles on their faces when they got to name their bear and also adopt it,” LaRue said. “They also went home with adoption certificates.”

Jeff Hild, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Administration for Children & Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said that in April 2023, President Joe Biden challenged ACF leaders to use every tool in their toolbox to increase wages for child care and Head Start providers and to make child care more affordable.

“The folks who are with kids in the classroom know what works best in those classrooms,” Hild said. “They know what policies we need to put in place to have children succeed.”

Growing need

Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Early Childhood Development, said in communities throughout the country there aren’t simply enough early childhood programs for all families who need them.

Diana Rauner (left), president of Start Early, which runs Educare Chicago, watches as early childhood students come in from a play break.

“In Head Start, the current funding level reaches about half of eligible preschoolers and just a fraction of infants and toddlers,” Hamm said. “So when we have the ability to expand, that if life-changing for a community, for a family, for a child. “We know that the service children get in Head Start improve not only their school readiness, but also their mental health, their physical health, their ability to get access to early intervention if they have a disability or a development delay.”

Hamm said putting money into early childhood learning saves money on children later in life. She said there is decades of research that speaks to the value of early childhood education.

“Every dollar you put in early in a child’s life is going to pay dividends over the course of their life cycle,” she noted, “and you don’t always see it right away. Sometimes it comes out in increased high school graduation rates, increased college attendance, socio-emotional supports that parents are able to give their children because they now have access to the resources and the skills to be more effective in their roles.”

Yuganda Jeffries-Streeter, founding support specialist for Early Head Start, oversees the Educare store where parents can go to meet family needs.

Yuganda Jeffries-Streeter, founding support specialist for Early Head Start, oversees the Educare store where parents can go to meet family needs.

“After the pandemic, we’ve seen how they just need extra things and we want to be able to supply it to them, with everything else going on in the world, ” she said. “Why can’t we help them out with it?”

kbeese@chronicleillinois.com