Khari Garvin is the director of the Office of Head Start (OHS) at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He has more than 20 years of national, state, and local experience designing and leading systems serving children and families in low-income communities. Before joining the Biden-Harris administration, Garvin served as the president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Greensboro in North Carolina, leading the mission to end generational poverty in the Greensboro metro area.
Garvin has modeled service at every level of Head Start programming. He served as the executive director for a large, multi-state Head Start grant recipient serving children in rural communities across five states in the Southern, Southeastern, Midwestern, and Great Plains regions of the U.S. As the director of North Carolina’s Head Start Collaboration Office, he convened 55 affiliate grant recipient organizations — including public school systems, community action agencies, county governments, and private nonprofits — that served over 28,000 children and families in all 100 counties.
Garvin is a proud alumnus of the National Head Start Fellowships program, where he worked at OHS. He previously served as a Head Start program manager in Illinois and as assistant Head Start/Early Head Start director at a program in North Carolina. Garvin holds a degree in psychology from Emory University and a master’s degree in education from Southern Illinois University.
OHS Organization
OHS has 12 Regional Offices that support the grants administration, oversight, and training and technical assistance. These offices are located in:
- Boston, MA
- New York, NY
- Philadelphia, PA
- Atlanta, GA
- Chicago, IL
- Kansas City, MO
- Dallas, TX
- Denver, CO
- San Francisco, CA
- Seattle, WA
The Regional Offices for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) and Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs are located in Washington, DC.