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Since its founding five decades ago, Head Start has served as the nation’s premier federally funded early childhood intervention. Focusing on children in the years before formal schooling, often from families with multiple risks, it has served as a natural and national laboratory for a wide range of basic, prevention, early intervention, and program evaluation research. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) was launched in 1997 as a periodic, longitudinal study of Head Start’s performance. There are 12 regions for federal management of Head Start. FACES gathers data on Head Start programs, staff, children, and families from Regions 1 through 10, which are the 10 geographically based Head Start regions nationwide. As of 2014, a study of Region XI (American Indian and Alaska Native; AI/AN) was added (see below). The FACES study is designed to be a reliable source of data for describing the skills of Head Start children; the experiences of the children and families served by Head Start; the quality of Head Start classrooms; and the qualifications, credentials, and opinions of Head Start staff. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, funds the study.