By: Cameron Morsberger
LOWELL — With filing deadlines, bill negotiations and legislative agendas, U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan’s day-to-day life in Washington, D.C. can often be filled with the minutiae and red tape of Congress.
Thursday was not that kind of day.
In a room of eight preschoolers at the James Houlares Early Learning Center, Trahan read a children’s story, received a big thank-you card filled with little handprints and presented a check of more than $4.5 million to Lowell’s Community Teamwork Inc., a nonprofit that will use that federal funding for its Head Start programs.
Having grown up in Lowell, the congresswoman said she had admired CTI before she was elected and the organization’s multifaceted work. When people ask Trahan where to go for assistance, she said CTI is “the first place” she suggests they turn.
Trahan said she was honored to return and acknowledge the “incredible work” of CTI through more funding — a total of $4,566,022 awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Our community action agencies, writ large, were our heroes in our communities,” Trahan said, referring to the pandemic, “doing everything that they’ve always done, but then at a scale that we never could have imagined and then innovating on what else we needed to do.”
The Head Start programs cater to children from 6 weeks to 5 years old, aiding in their learning and growth through learning curricula and play time. Families eligible to enroll in the program are typically at or below the poverty line, are on public assistance or do not have stable housing, according to the CTI website. Children in foster care or living with disabilities can also participate.
With five Head Start and Early Head Start Learning programs — based at child development centers — scattered across Greater Lowell, CTI aims to support the social-emotional, cognitive, physical and language development for children, as well as promote family well-being for “life-long success of their child,” according to the website.
Division Director of Child and Family Services Meghan Siembor said the financial support will ensure CTI provides education and care for the “most vulnerable children.” Siembor said they serve 631 children in Greater Lowell while also offering health, mental health and nutrition services in a “two-generational model,” for both children and their families.
Siembor highlighted two crises the field currently faces: workforce — such as employee retention and providing livable wages — and behavioral health. Prior to the pandemic, Siembor said they would see about three children identified as having behavioral health needs or a developmental disability. Now, she said they’re “at a point where we may have three that don’t.”
“This funding is really going to enable us to continue to raise salaries to have some parity with the public school system… The needs have definitely increased,” Siembor said at the event. “We are very fortunate with this funding that we can do some innovative projects.”
One project is the creation of the Rita O’Brien Dee Center for Behavioral Health and Development, Siembor said, and CTI is now identifying the gaps of mental health services and how to “close those gaps and really put more resources in the classrooms.”
Children in the classroom, aged 3 to 5, gifted Trahan a paper card filled with their handprints before she read from “I Am Enough,” a picture book by Grace Byers.
“These hands are gonna do big things,” Trahan said to the children. “I’m going to bring this to my office so I remember all of you, every single day I go in there.”
Trahan’s two daughters, who are 8 and 12 years old, no longer make their mom the cute cards and crafts they once did when they were younger, she said, but “they never get old.”
To come to CTI and visit children supported by that funding is “a dream,” she added.
“When you’re talking about the funding and the programs, you could easily lose sight of the beneficiary and the impact,” Trahan said in an interview. “Investing in those early learning programs, it really does set these kids up for success while helping working families get the affordable child care that they need.”
CEO Karen Frederick said the Head Start continuation grant is “critically important,” especially now, and she expressed her thanks to Trahan’s commitment to their work. Frederick called Trahan “the best congresswoman in the country.”
“We are fortunate to have Lori as our congresswoman, and I think we all know that,” Frederick said. “She knows the work we do, she cares about the work we do and is always there to help us.”
And unlike most other funding sources or programs, Head Start garners bipartisan support, Trahan said.
“There are trusted programs out there, Democrats and Republicans agreed on,” she said at the event. “This is one of them.”
