Volunteers Giving Head Start a Leg Up : The Proven Education Program Needs 100 Orange County Health Care Professionals

The good news is that Orange County’s Head Start program has received an additional $1.6 million in federal funds for the fiscal year 1990-91, which raises the program’s budget to $8 million. That means that the program will be able to serve nearly 500 more youngsters than before, and it will now have 17 sites, two more in the county than the current 15.

The bad news is that despite these efforts, Head Start expects to serve only 2,211 of the 11,762 Orange County children who are eligible. And this proven program provides important early childhood educational programs and health, psychological and nutrition services to 3- and 4-year-olds, 75% of whom are Latino.

Head Start officials have stated that their goal is to reach all eligible children. With some volunteer help from the community, there’s no reason why a lot more of these youngsters can’t be reached.

Two UC Irvine professors and a dentist have started a project to find 100 health care professionals willing to volunteer 10 hours of services a year, either in their offices or at Head Start sites.

Ten hours out of a year to make such an important program work is not too much to ask. This group of health professionals seeking volunteers should be encouraged in this important work.

Although Orange County is receiving more money for Head Start, federal grants require that local agencies provide 20% matching funds. That means that increased budgets require an increase in the match required for local agencies. But the requirement can be met in part by the services of volunteers. One professional organizer estimates that by donating services at their regular hourly rate, health-care professionals can contribute nearly $500,000 toward the needed $2 million in local funds.

Having volunteer services count toward the matching requirement is both a boon for local communities trying to stretch their dollars and a challenge to volunteers to meet the need. But allowing this substitution makes productive use of a community’s professional health care talent by getting doctors and dentists directly involved in providing service to the community.

Health care professionals in Orange County ought to do what they can to meet this important challenge put forth by Jim Swanson, the UC Irvine professor who started the project after serving on a national Head Start review, and the rest of his recruiting team.