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NATCHEZ — Head Start programs, including childcare and family support programs offered at Thompson Center at 1038 North Union St., remain fully operational despite past uncertainty surrounding the program’s funding.

The Thompson Head Start Center, which is administered by Mississippi Action for Progress Inc., serves more than 200 children and families and has more than 50 employees.

There had been concerns that Head Start would lose funding under the Trump administration. Earlier this year, a draft budget proposal included cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start. However, nationwide campaigns led to the restoration of Head Start funding in the latest budget draft.

Challenges to Head Start, including grant delays in other parts of the country, persist.

But that has not been the case in Natchez, according to the program’s director, Carrie Ford Campbell.

In a Town Hall meeting earlier this week at the Natchez Business and Civic League, Campbell announced that Head Start programming is not going anywhere in the near future.

“Nothing has happened with Head Start. No cuts or anything have happened. We have not been affected. Programs for children and families continue. We’re still going strong. … All of the comprehensive services are still being provided to the children and their families,” Campbell said.

Concordia Parish Head Start centers had also renewed the 5-year grant for programming earlier this year, said Alisha Green, who is the director of Head Start for the parish.

The parish’s Head Start centers currently serve 132 children and families, including 53 in Vidalia and 79 in Clayton — rural communities where other childcare options are limited, Green said. There are also 50-plus staffers between those sites.