Fort Worth Head Start temporarily suspended; independent child care programs still operating
Head Start campuses in Tarrant County will be closed between March 16-27, due to COVID-19 concerns, according Kara Waddell, head of Child Care Associates, which oversees child care services in the area.
CCA runs 24 Head Start campuses throughout the county with more than 2,400 children ages 3-5. The organization also works with Tarrant County Workforce Solutions that contracts with 671 independent child care programs.
On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster and announced protective health and safety measures for long-term care facilities, hospitals, and child care operations, which are licensed and regulated by the Texas Health and Human Services.
Waddell said CCA is making sure child care providers in the area are following the advice of county health officials to ensure children’s safety and minimize the possible spread of the virus. As of Saturday morning, all independent child care programs were still open.
The organization is helping prioritize emergency child care for parents who work as first responders or in the medical field during the closures. All other parents can visit the Child Care Management Service’s website for help finding alternative child care options, Waddell said.
All public schools in the county will also be closed through the end of the March, leaving another 325,000 children without a primary care provider.
The Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price’s office has been working to allocate resources to community centers to help feed, care for children, and organize a group of city employees and volunteers to respond to needs as they come up next week.
“One of our top priorities is to ensure our first responders and healthcare workers have every resource needed to do their jobs — and these front-line staff will need reliable and quality childcare for their children whose schools are closed,” Price said in a statement.
“Locally, we have seen our local childcare providers and professionals step-up in huge ways to help their community. They are exhibiting true leadership and community support with their planning efforts to provide back-up childcare options.”
Fernando Peralta Berrios, president of the neighborhood organization Familias de Rosemont in south Fort Worth, said neighbors here have started organizing to help parents who don’t have a place to leave their children while they attend work next week.
“It started after the announcement from the schools and it sort of snowballed from there,” Berrios said. “People are offering their homes as day cares and others are making food, it’s really wonderful.”
This story was originally published March 14, 2020 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Fort Worth Head Start temporarily suspended; independent child care programs still operating."
