We transform lives by preparing young children for school in a safe, affordable and stimulating educational environment, while providing parents an opportunity to work and improve the family’s economic well-being

Every child deserves a chance for a better future.

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High-quality early education offers a significant return on investment, fostering cognitive skills along with attentiveness, motivation, self-control and sociability. This creates children who are successful in school, college, career and life. But the children who need it most are least likely to get it, because their parents simply cannot afford to pay for it.

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The Center for Transforming Lives subsidizes early childhood development for homeless and low-income infants and toddlers at three centers in Tarrant County. Care is FREE for homeless families, with transportation to and from local homeless shelters, and offered on a sliding fee scale for working poor families. Full-day, year-round care gives parents the opportunity to work and attend school or training so they can improve the family’s economic stability and self-sufficiency. As an Early Head Start provider in Tarrant County, the Center for Transforming Lives plays a crucial role in helping at-risk children live safely during the day and become prepared for school.

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• Nationwide and locally, less than half of children in poverty test ready for school

• At the Center for Transforming Lives, 100% of graduating children tested ready for Kindergarten. Click here to read the complete 2017-2018 Child Outcomes Report.

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Helping parents and their children simultaneously is key

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High-quality, affordable child care is a powerful two-generation approach to ending the cycle of poverty. It supports parents by giving them the opportunity to work or complete training or post secondary education, ultimately improving the family’s economic stability.  And it ensures that children have the chance to develop well and begin kindergarten ready to thrive in school, work, and life.

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A family’s economic stability – or its instability – has a tremendous effect on a child’s growth and development. Early Head Start Family Advocates work one-on-one with our most vulnerable families to ensure they have safe housing, medical and mental health care, and access to education and job training and placement, as well as tools to foster healthy parent and family engagement. When parents thrive, the entire family thrives.

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How can you provide these services to qualified families for free?

The childcare services provided by CTL are made possible through Early-Head Start grants, USDA grants, and CDBG grants, including the Community Development Block Grant from the City of Arlington through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. After accounting for these sources, the Center continuously seeks philanthropic contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations to cover the remaining costs. Annual philanthropic gifts include: Sid Richardson Foundation, Miles Foundation, Morris Foundation, Rees-Jones Foundation, Rainwater Foundation, Carl B & Florence E. King Foundation, Anne T. & Robert M. Bass Foundation, The Eddleman-McFarland Fund, Frances C. and William P. Smallwood Foundation, Lockheed Martin AERO Club, among many others.

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Learn more about the impact of high quality childcare:
           

Workforce of Today, Workforce of Tomorrow: The Business Case for High Quality Child Care