New Resource Offers Strategies to Support Student Parents

Resource to Help Higher Education Support Student Parents through Head Start-College Partnerships—Give Us Your Feedback!

Roughly 1.8 million student parents with children under six are income-eligible for Head Start, the largest early learning program in the U.S., and one that takes a two-generation approach to promoting family self-sufficiency. Head Start-college partnerships can represent an opportunity to improve access to critical supports that can help parents earn college credentials while providing kids with a nurturing educational environment for growth and development.

Our newest resource Head Start College Partnership to Promote Student Parent Family Success: A Roadmap for Collaboration provides step-by-step guidance for higher ed leaders and staff looking to explore how partnerships with Head Start can help meet both systems’ needs and improve available supports for student parents and their children. This is especially important during COVID-19 as budget cuts threaten campus child care services.

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Let us know how we can improve this report for higher education leaders and practitioners by clicking here to participate in our feedback survey.

In an interview with Diverse Issues in Higher Education, IWPR Study Director and report author Lindsey Reichlin Cruse stresses that Head Start serves students who face the most obstacles to higher education.

“There is an increasing emphasis on equity in college outcomes for low income students, for first-generation students, for students of color. Student parents intersect with each of those groups. The more institutions can find cost effective, collaborative, innovative ways to help students work through and overcome some of these road blocks, the better their outcomes are going to look and the more progress they’re going to make toward the priorities they’ve set. Head Start is well positioned to serve this population.”

Join Our Twitter Chat with Generation Hope

Join us for a conversation on what student parents need for success this academic year. Our Twitter Chat with Generation Hope (chat guide and questions here) is this Friday, September 18 at 2 PM ET.

 

About Us

The Student Parent Success Initiative (SPSI), a project of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, is designed to improve supports and services for student parents seeking postsecondary education. SPSI serves to initiate new research, raise awareness on the need for student parent supports, and foster communication and collaboration among advocates, policymakers, educators, and practitioners. 

Contact us at [email protected]

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Institute for Women's Policy Research

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