WKU News

Press Release: T/TAS Celebrates 40 Years of Service in the Head Start Community

T/TAS
Friday, January 4th, 2013

For Immediate Release

Contact Person: Colleen Mendel
Phone: (800) 882-7482
Email: colleen.mendel@wku.edu

Head Start and Early Head Start staff, families, agencies and human services organizations across the nation will join T/TAS throughout 2013 in celebration of its 40^th year of service. Since 1973, Training and Technical Assistance Services (T/TAS) at Western Kentucky University has provided training and consultation to help programs maintain compliance, enhance quality and stay on the cutting edge of their mandates to provide comprehensive services to our country’s most vulnerable children and their families. T/TAS will mark the occasion with a year-long salute to Perseverance, Professionalism, Passion and Partnerships.

T/TAS has grown from a Head Start training provider in Kentucky, to a comprehensive resource center for Head Start in the southeastern United States, to its current scope - a team of trainers and consultants serving Head Start and human services organizations nationwide. Over the years, T/TAS added a Head Start, Early Head Start and child care program, as well as a child care resource and referral to its portfolio of services. T/TAS has a diverse, highly qualified, and experienced team that combines real world experience with post-graduate credentials to provide unparalleled services.

Colleen B. Mendel, Executive Director, who began her career with T/TAS at its inception, reflects… “Forty years seem like an eternity in these fast-paced times of start-ups and instant communication. But T/TAS, as an organization, has continuously developed and reinvented itself during these decades. We grow professionally as those we serve become more and more sophisticated. Through constant inquiry and experimentation, we stay on the cutting edge of research and practice. And, we are steeped in excellence through our association with committed individuals and stellar organizations throughout the country. We look forward to enriching our current relationships and to forging new opportunities as partners in quality for decades to come.”

T/TAS will kick off its 40^th anniversary year with a theme representative of its four decades of service… “Perseverance, Professionalism, Passion, and Partnerships.” Individual elements of the theme will be highlighted throughout the year. T/TAS’ 2013 signature event will be a new and exciting training institute, “Deeply Rooted: Sowing the Seeds of Success for Children and Families” to be held March 19-21st in Orlando, Florida. For detailed event information and registration options, visit www.ttas.org and choose “Events” from the top menu.

T/TAS’ central office is located on the campus of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with field offices in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington State.