About ABCD Head Start

ABCD Head Start and Children's Services is a comprehensive family development program that serves pregnant women, children from birth to age five, and their families. Our child-focused programs are committed to providing opportunities and services to the diverse, low-income children and families of Boston. We support these children and families to achieve:

School readiness
Self-sufficiency
Success in life.

For those who qualify, this means free, high-quality childcare and programs devoted to early childhood education and a child's total health and wellbeing.

A Guarantee of Excellence

Head Start offers the advantage of federally funded and rigorously reviewed services that must meet the federal government's standards in order to be called a Head Start program. We are funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services through the Administration of Children and Families. We have been the frontrunner in early childhood education for nearly half a decade, during which time our hands-on experience in the field of early childhood development has allowed us to develop many of the standards and practices now accepted nationally. For example, childhood obesity is just now emerging as a national concern, but our Living Well Task Force has addressed this issue for more than a decade.

The citywide ABCD Head Start program is Boston's primary source for a comprehensive, holistic, family intervention program for low-income, pre-school children and their families. The decentralized program serves more than 2,200 three-to-five year olds in 22 consolidated neighborhood-based programs throughout Boston. Early Head Start also provides more than 186 pregnant women and infants and children of young parents with child care, support, and parenting education. At present, more than 700 of the 2,400 children in ABCD Head Start and Early Head Start receive full-day, full-year services. And those full-day programs are being expanded to meet the needs of working and in-school parents whenever possible.

A History of Compassion

Both Head Start and ABCD have a long history of serving families in Boston with programs to improve and enrich their lives and wellbeing. ABCD was incorporated in 1962, prior to the national War on Poverty, as a "Gray Areas Project." Its original mandate, which holds true to this day, is to promote self-help for people and neighborhoods. Today, ABCD is known as Boston's anti-poverty agency, and is the largest independent, private, 501(c)3 non-profit human services agency in New England. ABCD emphasizes the empowerment of low-income people and communities as the most effective means of promoting economic success. ABCD focuses on prevention, rather than crisis management, and builds on individual and community strengths.

Because we are locally administered by Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), which serves more than 100,000 low-income Greater Boston residents, the families of children enrolled in Head Start gain access to ABCD services, such as housing, food and fuel assistance, and education and training programs. We work together to give your child a Head Start.