Early Head Start is the branch of the federal Head Start program that serves children under 36 months instead of preschoolers.
It runs as center-based classrooms, home-based visiting and family child care under the same Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR Part 1302) as preschool Head Start, and in FY 2024 it was funded for 181,049 slots (a count excluding AIAN and Migrant/Seasonal programs).
Here is how the program is built and who it employs.
What is Early Head Start?
Early Head Start (EHS) is the federally funded program for the youngest members of the Head Start population: infants and toddlers under 36 months.
The rules that run it — staffing, class sizes, home visiting, family child care — sit in the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) at 45 CFR Part 1302, the federal rules the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issues.
The scale is federal.
In FY 2024 Head Start was funded to serve 715,873 children and pregnant women, with $11,753,187,818 in total federal operations funding; 181,049 of the funded enrollment slots were Early Head Start slots, a count that excludes AIAN and Migrant/Seasonal programs.
For job seekers, the program matters for one structural reason: under the current standards, qualification floors, class sizes and annual operating hours are written into federal rules rather than set center by center, so an EHS job has a shape you can read in advance — and the same standards cover home-based and family child care roles, not just classrooms.
Those standards are proposed for replacement: an August 2026 proposal would hand ratio and group-size limits to state-established standards.
What are the Early Head Start program models?
Head Start standards allow four program options: center-based, home-based, family child care, or an approved locally designed variation.
In the 2023-24 program year, about 67% of funded Early Head Start services were center-based and about 28% were home-based.
Center-based is the classroom model.
A class of children under 36 months must have two teachers with no more than eight children, or three teachers with no more than nine, and each teacher is assigned consistent, primary responsibility for no more than four children.
Center-based programs must also provide 1,380 annual hours of planned class operations for all enrolled children — the operating commitment behind a center teaching job.
Home-based delivers the program in the family's home.
EHS home-based programs provide weekly 90-minute home visits — a minimum of 46 per year — plus 22 group socializations, and the visits are run by home visitors rather than classroom teachers.
Family child care delivers services through providers working in their own homes.
Under the Head Start family child care rules, one provider caring for mixed ages including preschoolers has a maximum of six children, with no more than two under 24 months; one provider caring only for children under 36 months has a maximum of four, with no more than two under 18 months.
The family child care staffing rule is a credential timeline: providers must have prior child care experience and be enrolled in a Family Child Care CDA (or a state equivalent) or an early childhood degree program before serving, earning the credential within 18 months.
The standards behind these numbers are proposed for replacement
Who works in Early Head Start?
The teaching staff are the core.
Early Head Start center-based teachers of infants and toddlers must have at minimum a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential or a comparable credential, plus training or equivalent coursework in early childhood development with a focus on infant and toddler development (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(1); Head Start Act §645A(h)).
That is a credential floor, not a degree floor — and because it is written into the statute, the August 2026 proposal would leave it in place even as it drops other qualification rules.
Around the classroom sit the other roles the standards recognize: home visitors for the home-based option, family child care providers for the FCC option, and assistant teachers, whom the program counts among its child development staff.
The current standards also write qualification rules for program-level staff — directors, coaches and family service staff among them — rules the August 2026 proposal would drop.
The workforce numbers show what that adds up to.
Across the Head Start program family, about 251,000 people were employed or contracted in 2023-24, and parents of current or former Head Start children made up 24% of staff.
About 112,000 provided child development services — teachers, assistant teachers, home visitors and family child care providers — and 31% of them were proficient in a language other than English.
Head Start's families as a whole put that language profile in context: about 35% of children enrolled in Head Start were dual language learners, and 63% of those were in families that primarily spoke Spanish at home.
The classroom role in detail — duties, the CDA route and what postings ask for — is the Early Head Start teacher career guide.
How Early Head Start differs from Head Start
Both programs run under the same performance standards; the division is age.
Early Head Start serves children under 36 months, while Head Start preschool classes are composed mostly of 3-year-olds or mostly of 4- and 5-year-olds.
The scale difference is large.
In FY 2024, funded enrollment was 488,792 Head Start preschool slots against 181,049 Early Head Start slots (counts exclude AIAN and Migrant/Seasonal programs), and the delivery mix differs too: about 97% of funded Head Start preschool services were center-based, while Early Head Start was about 67% center-based and 28% home-based.
Classrooms differ just as much.
A Head Start preschool class with a majority of 4- and 5-year-olds can have up to 20 children — 17 in double session — with a teacher and a teaching assistant or two teachers; classes with a majority of 3-year-olds are capped at 17 (15 in double session).
An Early Head Start class, by contrast, is two teachers with up to eight children or three teachers with up to nine, and no teacher is primarily responsible for more than four.
The qualification floors rise with the children's age.
Head Start preschool center-based teachers need at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or the alternative route in Head Start Act §648A(a)(3)(B), and at least 50% of preschool teachers nationwide must hold a baccalaureate — a national target, not a rule for each teacher.
Early Head Start's teacher floor is the CDA with infant-toddler coursework.
For the two classroom jobs side by side — duties, assistant-teacher rules and credential paths — the Early Head Start teacher career guide has the role detail, and the preschool side is in the Head Start teacher career guide.
One caveat covers both programs: the August 2026 proposal would replace the federal ratio and group-size limits with state standards, so the numbers above are the current rules, not settled ones.
How to find Early Head Start jobs
Early Head Start jobs are posted by the local programs that deliver the services — center-based classrooms, home-based programs and family child care networks funded through federal grants.
Staff turnover is part of the picture: Head Start reported a 15% staff turnover rate during the 2023-24 program year.
Two facts describe who these programs hire.
Parents of current and former Head Start children made up 24% of Head Start staff in 2023-24.
And the federal floor for center-based teachers — the CDA with infant-toddler-focused training — is the credential to have in hand, or be working toward, when you apply.
Early Head Start teacher jobs are collected on our job board, with openings from centers and programs hiring for infant and toddler classrooms.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Early Head Start operates under the federal Head Start standards at 45 CFR Part 1302, issued by the Administration for Children and Families and administered through the Office of Head Start, and the rules are in active federal rulemaking — confirm current requirements with the Office of Head Start and the program you would work for.