Policy

This blog was originally posted on the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment  website on May 7, 2018.

By: Caitlin Mclean

Why we need to know more about the early childhood workforce

This is an exciting time in early childhood education. Given early educators’ critical role in children’s early learning and development, experts are urging significant policy shifts and substantial new investments to revamp how teachers, leaders, and other professionals working with young children are prepared, supported, and compensated. These changes signal a growing understanding that the well-being and skill of this workforce is key to children’s learning.

But there’s a big obstacle in the way. The field can’t shape policy decisions or allocate resources effectively without first being able to answer basic questions about the early childhood workforce — its size and key characteristics across settings, for example.

The field can’t confidently answer these questions because data on this workforce have not been consistently or systematically collected. We know, for example, that early childhood educators benefit greatly from a deep understanding of child development — this is one reason for the emerging consensus on higher education credentials for this group of educators. And yet, if a policymaker wants to know how many members of the current workforce need additional education and how much education, this information is not available in many places. We would not be able to answer.

Here are a few other questions that we can’t answer with confidence across states:

• How many early educators are there in different settings?
• What percentage participate in professional development?
• How many lead teachers have bachelor’s degrees? Associate degrees?
• How many teachers need educational support to achieve higher qualifications?
• How does level of education vary according to the racial/ethnic characteristics of the
  workforce?
• How many early educators earn $15 per hour or more?

Without good data, we’re essentially guessing. A dearth of data reinforces the status quo. Without data, anecdote — and even bias — drives policy decisions. Without data, resources could be misdirected to communities that do not need them and away from communities that do. Without data, we risk repeating the same mistakes because we don’t know how effective a program or policy is.

Solution: Invest in Better Data

So what would a good early care and education workforce data system look like? Our new brief offers details. In a nutshell, a high-quality data collection would have five qualities.

5 Features Every Data Set Should Have

1. Data should be collected regularly.
2. Data should be comparable across regions, states, and localities.
3. Data sets should be standardized, so data on individuals can be linked to data on
   services, programs, and outcomes for children and families.
4. Data sets should be periodically supplemented to answer new or more detailed
   policy questions as they arise.
5. Data sets should be transparent and accessible to the wider public.

When building a database or conducting a survey, these four questions should be considered.

4 Questions to Ask When Building a Database or Conducting a Survey

1. Can the data be used to estimate the size and key characteristics of the workforce?
2. Do the data accurately and reliably describe the population under study? If the data
   are derived from a sample rather than a census, are they representative of the
   wider population?
3. Are the data sufficiently detailed to provide answers to more complex or in-depth
   policy or research questions?
4. Can the data identify trends over time? Is it possible to track the characteristics of
   the same teachers/providers over time, for example?

Many states have early educator workforce registries or surveys. While these resources are a good start, many registries and surveys currently cannot answer the above four questions, in part because they have not been steadily funded. Without sufficient resources, progress toward realizing the potential of either registries or surveys will likely be halting and incomplete.

5 Steps State and Local Leaders Can Take to Strengthen Data

State and local leaders should continue to develop and strengthen workforce data systems,
starting with the following five steps.

1. Take stock of your data; identify members of the workforce and programs not included.
2. Establish the basic and in-depth questions you can and cannot answer about the
   workforce.
3. Identify potential funding sources — such as the Child Care Development Block Grant —
   and design advocacy strategies for funding workforce data collection, management, and
   analysis.
4. Ensure that workforce data are part of early childhood governance structures and
   support the integration of workforce data systems with broader early childhood data.
5. Help spearhead a federal advocacy effort for better workforce data. Federal leaders
   should continue to encourage and assist states in developing data systems that track
   early care and education workforce composition and characteristics over time.

In the end, access to better data is not simply a “wish-list” item. It is critical to the field. With improved data, we can begin to answer fundamental questions and use that information to better inform policies, build the workforce, and ensure our children are being given every advantage they deserve.

For more, see, “The Workforce Data Deficit Who It Harms and How It Can Be Overcome,” by Marcy Whitebook, Ph.D., Caitlin McLean, Ph.D., and Lea J.E. Austin, Ed.D.

You can find this blog on the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley website here. 

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Vidya Putcha and Maggie Gratz, Results for Development

By: Dr. Mihaela Ionescu – Program Director, International Step By Step Association

The discussion around the integration of early childhood services is not new at all, but it became more heated in the recent years because of increasingly complex challenges that families with young children face in the current dynamic social, economic, cultural and political contexts they live. There are many experiences of both bottom-up and top-down initiatives for strengthening integration in various countries, but all indicate a series of barriers. And many related to a manner of thinking and working which pays tribute to a highly specialized and silo-ed approach. The barriers also point to a weak or ‘dysfunctional’ relationship between practice, research and policies, which should be meant to make services more responsive and efficient and to bring them closer to children and families, and to communities.  

The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative led by ISSA and Results for Development Institute hosted on October 26th a webinar with a spotlight on those critical aspects of integration that are closely connected to early childhood workforce, especially to those who are in leadership positions. The two guests, Jacqueline Barnes and Jan Peeters brought their long experience from two different contexts in UK, respectively Belgium. Both pointed out a few key aspects that were revealed either through evaluations of programmes that focused on integrating services (see the Sure Start Programme in UK) or by bottom-up initiatives that emerged from inside the services which wanted to be more responsive to families, to and in the communities where they function, thus starting to build local networks and expanding and bridging their services to better align them with families’ demands (see the Ubuntu video made by VBJK in Ghent/Belgium).

Whether in a top-down approach as in UK, where funds were made available for creating the integration of services at community level, or in a bottom-up approach which enabled a more reach-out and participatory approach of those working in services, the success or failure was to a great extent linked to the competences of the workforce, including those in leadership positions (competences meaning the workforce’s knowledge, values, and attitudes that are shaping their practices).

An important prerequisite for integration often mentioned was related to the shared vision regarding children and families of those who work in and lead services and also for those who decide about early years’ policies and practice. In order to align different views, professional languages, different understandings, and different practices, a long process of dialogue (‘negotiation’) led by shared goals has to be initiated among stakeholders, accompanied by new ‘ways of doing things’, therefore a new organizational culture. Jacqueline Barnes pointed out how different professional beliefs, professional stereotypes, differing levels of qualification and experience leading to conflicting views require time for alignment. And that can be done through continuous dialogue, common professional development activities, ‘bridging activities’ among professionals/services led by common goals.

In the same context, Jan Peeters talked about the importance of creating professional learning communities (within and across services) that help build a shared vision, a collective responsibility and engage in reflective and in-depth dialogue around the meaning and outcome for children and families of the work services are doing. An interesting concept in the context of integration was the ‘de-privatisation of practice’ which points to the importance of peer-observation - ‘exposing’ your practices to be observed by peers who act as ‘critical friends’ - and learning from reflecting together with peers, as an act of bridging professions and professionals, but also as an enriching way to grow professionally, beyond the traditional role. A culture of cooperation needs to be nurtured through a visionary and participatory leadership and with supporting practices that encourage the peer and group learning, allocate time for dialogue, for planning together, for making decisions together, for reflecting on what is the right thing to do for each young child and their family in the community. Even if policies are in place, they will never ‘teach’ people about the ‘know-how’. New competences need to be nurtured in initial and continuous professional development and then an enabling professional environment needs to be created for such competences to be enacted. There are already many experiences of how such competences can be nurtured, it is time for such examples to become the mainstream way for preparing professionals.

Could the integration of services have chances only if services exist under the same roof? In some places yes, in other places no. Where a variety of services for young children and their parents exist on the level of the community, a more (cost) efficient way of integration is to create a functional network powered by a shared vision, shared and agreed responsibilities, good channels and protocols for communication, but most of all, time for common planning and decision making, especially regarding the most vulnerable children and families, who usually deserve a more comprehensive and holistic approach. A ‘one stop shop’ might be a better solution for children and families, but it requires sound, committed, reflective and shared leadership, an inclusive, cooperative and participative organizational culture driven by shared values and supportive practices. It requires commitment, time, and continuous learning.

There is no recipe for the best solution. Integration can take different shapes in different places, but important ingredients are related to the values and practices that are enacted by those in leadership positions and the competences that are nurtured in professionals. It’s not a job for one person or for a single institution. To quote Susan Kessede, UNICEF Representative in Belize: ‘No one can whistle a symphony’.
 

Listen to the webinar here.

By: Vidya Putcha

Child care workers, preschool teachers, teacher assistants, social workers, community health workers, nurses — these are just a sampling of the many women and men who work with our youngest children to ensure their healthy development. Through their day to day work and interactions, these individuals have the opportunity to transform a child’s developmental trajectory, but often do not receive adequate pay, training, support, or incentives in order to maximize impact.

We know that these individuals, collectively comprising the early childhood workforce, need to be better supported, but how?

As part of the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, Results for Development and the International Step by Step Association helped to answer this question by carrying out landscape analyses on two critical themes relating to the workforce: competences and standards, and training and professional development. We studied these themes to not only understand the size and scope of relevant challenges but to surface promising approaches to addressing them.

Based on our research, we found that policymakers can undertake several actions to better support this workforce. Here are four such actions:

1. Develop job descriptions and competences for roles within the early childhood workforce.

Competences, which lay out what an individual should know and be able to do, can help guide training, recruitment and monitoring and mentoring. With more clearly defined competences, training curricula can be designed to help learners focus on specific areas based on their individual needs and the knowledge and skills important for their job performance. Competences can also guide recruitment processes and help staff and supervisors assess performance on a continuous basis. In particular, tools based on established competences can help supervisors assess performance, provide follow-up support and track progress over time

Policymakers looking to develop competences for a role for the first time should develop job descriptions which clarify the scope of a particular role if they do not already exist and also look to examples of competences from global or regional efforts to guide their process, such as the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance’s competences for para professional social service workers or ISSA’s Competent Educators of the 21st Century.

2. Ensure that all members of the workforce, regardless of their role, have opportunities to learn and grow — both prior to entry and while in their roles.

Although some countries are prioritizing training and professional development for members of the early childhood workforce, opportunities remain limited for people who work with the very youngest children, auxiliary staff such as teacher assistants, and remote populations. In order to be effective in their roles, these individuals, often volunteers or staff without formal education, need a core set of knowledge and skills.

To ensure opportunities are available more widely, policymakers may consider using distance learning to reach remote and underserved populations or offering subsidies for training courses. Under the ECD component of South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Programme, which aims to upgrade the quality of existing ECD services and also support the expansion of the sector overall, government funding is available to support training fees and stipends for prospective and current practitioners working with children ages 0 to 4 and in Grade R (pre-primary).

3. Offer sufficient opportunities for practical skill-building in initial preparation and in-service training programs.

Prior to entering into the workforce, professionals and paraprofessionals need a better understanding of what they will do on a day-to-day basis and how best to approach their work. During field education or internships, they may be able to observe professionals and paraprofessionals in their jobs, apply theories and principles learned in the classroom to real life situations, and experience the issues inherent in working with different communities. Once they enter into their roles, members of the workforce can benefit from opportunities to receive feedback and discuss challenges in their day-to-day work through coaching and peer learning.

For example, the Madrasa Resource Centers in East Africa offers weekly reflection groups led by mentors which provide the space for early childhood development teachers to reflect on day-to-day practice. Such peer learning initiatives can be more effective than training and professional development imparted through lectures or presentations.

4. Ensure that training curricula and materials are relevant to local contexts.

Training and professional development curricula are often not tailored to local contexts and as a result, may not prepare early childhood workforce members to address issues that are relevant to the communities and populations they serve. For example, research from the social and child protection sector in West and Central Africa indicates that training materials and curricula are often imported from other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., and not adapted to the needs of specific countries. 

However, there are some promising approaches that have been utilized. In supporting community health workers to integrate early childhood screening and counseling in their work in Mozambique, PATH utilized resources from the Care for Child Development (CCD) package as a starting point for developing training materials, which were then adapted to the Mozambican context. Due to the linguistic diversity in Mozambique and low literacy levels, PATH made the decision to use pictures in the training and counseling materials as much as possible. These visual tools are used as a basis for generating discussion and facilitating interactive exercises, and have been well-received by health workers.

Developing the next generation of the early childhood workforce will require a number of actions, including policy reforms which address difficult topics such as remuneration and incentives. And while the recommendations above will not, on their own, address the entirety of challenges facing this workforce, they may offer examples for how policymakers can better support these individuals through the establishment of sound competences and standards and investment in effective training and professional development.

Our work supporting the early childhood workforce continues. To stay engaged with new evidence and resources from the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, sign up for the ECWI Newsletter today!

Vidya Putcha is a Senior Program Officer on the Global Education team at Results for Development (R4D), where she focuses on early childhood development.