National Early Care and Education Workforce Center

The National Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Center is a joint research and technical assistance center that equips state and local leaders to drive change in ECE workforce policy. A collective of four partner organizations led by Child Trends, the Center addresses the fundamental need for changes to ECE career advancement systems, compensation, and workplace policies that reflect the value and skills the workforce provides to our communities.

Background on the ECE Workforce

Early educators play a vital role in the care and education of nearly 10 million young children every day. Broadly, the ECE workforce has extensive experience, with many early educators bringing 16 years or more to their roles. Yet early educators’ wages (median of $13.07/hour) are significantly less than the national median wage ($22.92), which not only threatens current educators’ well-being but stifles the pipeline of qualified individuals into the field.

To deepen their skill set and increase their pay, many early educators pursue additional education, but face barriers to advancing their qualifications due to the cost and complexity of navigating higher education and professional development systems. In addition to seeking accessible career pathways, early educators across ECE settings need work environment standards that ensure safe, supportive workplaces, including paid preparation time, adult-size furniture and restrooms, and professional development support.

The National ECE Workforce Center’s Theory of Change

Creating good jobs for the ECE workforce requires multiple integrated strategies. The National ECE Workforce Center focuses on three aims for improving conditions for the ECE workforce:

• Competitive and fair compensation
• Clear and accessible career pathways
• Positive working conditions

The Center’s work toward these aims is guided by its “ECE Workforce Systems Change Framework,” a blueprint for how to drive change in ECE workforce policies and systems. The Change Framework synthesizes evidence about systems change from research, policy, and practice into a set of primary drivers, or key factors that must change to achieve systems change aims:

1. Practice drivers: The programmatic and policy actions taken to achieve the aims
2. Infrastructure drivers: The structural aspects necessary for achieving and sustaining the aims
3. Principles drivers: The underlying beliefs and mindsets necessary for achieving the aims

Within each primary driver is a set of secondary drivers, or evidence-based practices and strategies that are needed to put the primary drivers in place. The Center structures its technical assistance around these primary and secondary drivers when working with states and communities on intentional, coordinated action to build a qualified and fairly compensated ECE workforce.

Our Activities

The partners on the National ECE Workforce Center possess combined expertise in research, technical assistance, lived experience, communications, strategy, and national and state policy. This multidisciplinary approach, combined with our staff’s deep knowledge of multiple ECE systems, allows the Center to be responsive to the evolving needs of the field.

The National ECE Workforce Center offers three levels of support to ECE leaders making changes in their system:

Intensive: Taking action

• Action Research Partnerships are long-term, intensive engagements designed to increase teams’ capacity to lead systems change through integrated learning and action. Action Research Partnerships also build evidence about what works to fundamentally shift systems in support of the ECE workforce and disseminate that evidence to the larger field.

Targeted: Peer-informed action

• The Center’s short-term shared learning opportunities include Communities for Action, through which technical assistance experts help teams create action plans toward their career pathway and compensation goals.

Universal: Supporting action

• The Center develops and shares resources and tools intended to bolster capacity and leadership across the field. The Center’s research-to-practice briefs provide evidence-based guidance to early education leaders looking to advance compensation and career advancement for the ECE workforce. Our newsletter provides regular updates on newly available resources and opportunities to participate in Center activities.

Leadership and Partner Organizations

The National ECE Workforce Center is a collaborative of four core partners—Child Trends; Early Education Leaders at University of Massachusetts, Boston; the Delaware Institute for Excellence in Early Childhood; and ZERO TO THREE —informed by collaborating partners, ECE educators, federal agencies, and other advisory bodies.

The Center is staffed by nearly 40 individuals across the partner organizations. Our Leadership Team members include:

• Kathryn Tout, managing director—Child Trends
• Mallory Warner, deputy managing director—Child Trends
• Brandy Jones Lawerence, technical assistance director—ZERO TO THREE
• Anne Douglass, research codirector—University of Massachusetts, Boston
• Rena Hallam, research codirector—University of Delaware
• Katherine Paschall, deputy director—Child Trends
• Sherri Castle, deputy director—Child Trends
• Sondra Ranum, deputy director—ZERO TO THREE
• Lauren Zarick, communications director—Child Trends

The National ECE Workforce Center is supported by Grant Number 90TA000004-01-00 from the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Neither the Administration for Children and Families nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse this website (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure and policies, and any services or tools provided). The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Administration for Children and Families, including the Office of Early Childhood Development; the Office of Head Start; the Office of Child Care; and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.