From HealthNewsDigest.com

National
50 Years of Head Start
By
Mar 27, 2015 - 10:02:33 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - New Haven, Conn.-When Edward Zigler - widely known as the "Father of Head Start" and founder of the Yale Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy - celebrates Head Start's 50thanniversary in Washington, D.C. on March 31, he will see many "Head Start Babies," among them one he entrusted with his own life.

Two years ago, while Zigler was on the operating table preparing to undergo hip surgery, he learned that his Yale anesthesiologist, John Paul Kim, M.D., was a Head Start graduate. Like Zigler, Kim grew up in a poor immigrant family. Kim's parents credited the program with their son's success.

Zigler will reunite with Kim for the first time since that surgery on March 31 during the opening session of the National Head Start Association's (NHSA) Annual Conference and Expo held March 29 to April 2. Their reunion will take place on stage in front of an expected audience of more than 5,000 Head Start directors, teachers, and families.

Zigler and Kim will be available for interviews before, during, and after the NHSA event, which will also be attended by Kim's parents. Walter Gilliam, the current director of the Edward Zigler Center at Yale will also be available for interviews. Gilliam was present when Kim realized that he was about to care for the man responsible for opening the door to opportunities he may otherwise have missed.

Kim is one of more than 32 million Head Start graduates who have benefited from the educational, health, and nutritional services provided by the federally funded program. Zigler helped plan the program during the Johnson administration and ran Head Start during the Nixon administration. In addition to Head Start, he helped to plan several national projects and policies, such as Early Head Start and the Family and Medical Leave Act. He was the founding director of the United States Office of Child Development (now the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and chief of the U.S. Children's Bureau. Zigler is described as the "Father of Head Start" for his unique role as one of the program's planners and staunchest champions.

Kim's parents emigrated from Cambodia and enrolled him in a Head Start program in Yorktown Heights, New York. He went on to earn an undergraduate degree at Yale and an M.D. from Tufts University. After completing internships, residencies, and fellowships at Tufts, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School, Kim returned to Yale to serve as assistant professor of anesthesiology. He is now a staff physician in anesthesiology and pain management at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, California.



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