Alexia Rojas was worried about her son, Luca, as most mothers would be.
Though only about a year old at the time, the boy was assessed as having a developmental delay, which meant he would need early interventions to reach significant milestones, such as using words to express needs and form simple sentences, and coordinating hand movements to stack blocks. But Rojas and her partner felt confident he would thrive at El Hogar Del Niño Child & Family Center in Pilsen, one of Brightpoint’s six early child care and education centers in Illinois.
For more than a half century, El Hogar has been considered a trusted institution in Pilsen, a proud Latino immigrant community on Chicago’s West Side that has been steadily gentrifying in recent years. At El Hogar, families with low incomes can enroll in the free Head Start early care and education program, which also provides resources and support for parents.
That’s a critical resource for families like Rojas’s as costs continue to rise and federal assistance dwindles.
“We were able to intervene before it got harder and this made it helpful for him,” Rojas, 28, said of her son. “As a parent, you can feel at fault but understanding more shows us how we can actually support him properly.”
Like many families in the El Hogar Del Niño Child & Family Center, Rojas and her partner Felipe Ocaña, 30, learned about El Hogar through friends in the community who knew and trusted the center. They enrolled their daughter Mila, now 5 years old, in 2022.
Rojas doesn’t take child care decisions lightly. Her mother worked as a teacher’s aide in a local daycare throughout her life. Having grown up in Pilsen, she knew of the El Hogar and took her friends’ advice to begin the enrollment process for Mila.
At first, Rojas was nervous. Throughout her daughter’s first week at the center, though, she felt unexpected relief.
“I felt safe and encouraged by her teachers,” Rojas said.
She also appreciated that her daughter was being taught bilingually and learning basic ASL to help with communication. As Mila progressed, she met all her milestones. Her little brother Luca started at El Hogar when he was 9 months old, almost a whole year earlier than his sister. He received direct guidance and therapy in his classroom, and his parents received weekly updates on his progress.
So far this year, about 78 percent of the 153 children tested at El Hogar are meeting or exceeding developmental milestones, a rate that’s expected to climb as the year goes on, according to Brightpoint data.
Having both children at El Hogar, Rojas hoped to find work closer to her children. By a happy coincidence as she searched for work, her mother saw an opening at El Hogar and encouraged her to apply.
Today, Rojas works as an administrative assistant at El Hogar. Since joining the team, she’s learned the center helps families in a variety of ways, including home visiting for new and expecting parents, and an after-school program for older children, ages 5-12, in the community.
“They actually care,” Rojas said. “I see the people in this field because they feel and care for these families.”
Now, she hopes more parents will enroll their children in Head Start centers.
“It’s about education; it’s one of the most important things for kids to have at an early age and to have socialization and independence to go to kindergarten,” Rojas said. “When they’re enrolled at a center like Brightpoint’s we are preparing them for the next steps and the kids learn how to be people!”
As for her son Luca, he just turned 2 years old in 2026.
And he’s hitting all his milestones, too.