OUTCOME AREA 4

A Strong and Supported Early Learning Workforce

Early learning providers nurture curiosity, joy, and confidence in the children they serve.

Yet, so often, providers themselves lack the support necessary for their own well-being.

Their work can be highly stressful while their compensation is often low. The burdens of continuing education requirements, compassion fatigue, and secondary trauma from supporting families and children that have experienced traumatic events all factor into the stress that providers endure.

The end result is a workforce in jeopardy. We are seeing unprecedented staff turnover rates and severely understaffed early learning settings, which has a direct negative impact on the children and families in our state.

If we want high-quality learning services, we need to care for our providers.

While the early learning system has received positive recent enhancements, we still need a much broader, deeper effort. Our focus must be on addressing the longstanding inequities to rebuild and reimagine how the early learning workforce is supported.

“We would all love to compensate staff what we believe they are worth. We are balancing that with keeping rising costs to families reasonable in their struggle to make budget. Unfortunately, both groups are struggling — parents and staff.”

– Provider

The median annual salary for childcare and preschool teachers in Washington State is so low that they are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). ⁶

DID YOU KNOW?

What Will Success Look Like?

With a bold and transformational commitment to improving compensation, increasing diversity, and enhancing training and support, we can realize our vision for a strong and supported early learning workforce. In turn, the workforce will have a major impact on every other goal in our ELCP — improving the future of Washington state families and strengthening our communities.

Goals

Our early childhood workforce is robust, skilled, diverse, anti-racist and culturally responsive, with multiple pathways available to support continuing education, recruit and retain a diverse and highly capable early childhood workforce.
Resources are available to enable the workforce in settings-based, home- based and community services and supports to feel comfortable, confident and culturally responsive in supporting children in their care, including children that have experienced trauma, children with special needs and families who need healing-centered support.
People in the early childhood workforce are well compensated with both financial and non-financial resources.

Strategies

Expand access to a centralized, culturally responsive, anti-bias, anti-racist foundational training portal for all providers. The trainings should be designed based on research and experience providing high quality child care, and an understanding about the ways in which systems and institutions have perpetuated inequities for Black, Indigenous and People of Color.
Supports Goal B
Provide healing-centered training and anti-bias and anti-racist education, including the effect of historical trauma on Black, Indigenous and People of Color, to Early Learning workforce across early learning settings, including kindergarten through 3rd grade educators.
Supports Goal B
Radically transform pathways into the profession and to career advancement to diversify the workforce, with a focus on Black, Indigenous and People of Color, including gender diversity. The pathways will value experience and demonstrated ability, along with credit-based education and training.
Supports Goal A
Increase the number of diverse early learning leaders from Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities. Approaches can include mentorship opportunities, access to community-based coaches, etc.
Supports Goals A and B
Enhance compensation to ensure that all professionals in the early learning workforce are earning equitable wages (including benefits).
Supports Goal C
Enhance retention of a strong workforce, including professional development opportunities to learn from one another based on community needs.
Supports Goal C
Expand access to shared services (i.e., health and mental health consultations, healing-centered approaches and support for financial and administrative capacity building) in languages and methods that work for all, so that every provider can be successful, including in rural communities.
Supports Goal B
Provide child care health consultation to early learning professionals that matches culturally and linguistically with families and communities.
Supports Goal B
Build public awareness that results in advocacy for budget and policy actions that address the need to increase compensation to enhance the stability of the early learning workforce.
Supports Goal C