Project Description:
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Office of Childhood (OOC) aims to build a strong early childhood infrastructure to lift up the lives of young children, families, and the professionals who serve them. Professionals are the main driver of quality in early care and education, but Missouri's system of preparation, support, and compensation creates obstacles that weakened the early childhood workforce. The goal of these workforce development activities is to create steps to transform the early childhood profession into one where Missouri has a workforce that is paid a livable wage and has access to:
(1) quality professional development,
(2) reliable information about what constitutes a career in early childhood, and
(3) sustainable assistance in moving through a career in early childhood.
In 2021, the University of Missouri Kansas City-Institute for Human Development (UMKC-IHD) worked with a small group of key stakeholders (the Project Team) by implementing several workforce development strategies to begin to address alignment and data collection, program development, systems design, messaging, and operationalizing information in a user-friendly way. The overall goal for this project year was to begin the alignment of standards, processes, and protocols that will result in seamless career pathways for the early childhood workforce.
In 2022, UMKC-IHD continued the work by expanding the Project Team to include representation of major workforce sectors and geographic regions of the state. Credentials and degrees were deeply examined and aligned to professional standards and competencies to clearly define career pathways. A primary focus in this project year was stakeholder engagement to garner feedback for an improved professional development system. UMKC-IHD conducted studies of Missouri's early childhood workforce and compensation in the field.
