This week our assignment was to find at least 3 organizations on the national or federal level that appeal to me in regards to my community of practice on meeting the needs of the early childhood educator in regards to better pay and educational opportunities.
The first organization that I chose was the Center for the Child Care Workforce. The mission is to improve the quality of early care and education for all children by promoting policy, research that ensure the workforce is well-educated, and receive better compensation in the workplace. In 2002 CCW merged with the American Federation of Teachers Education Foundation (AFTEF) which allowed a broader scope of CCW's work and expand the capacity to create a unified voice for the early care and education workforce. I live in the south and they do not like unions; however early childhood educators need someone to speak up for them and advocate for better pay for the work that they do. The union represents 80,000 early childhood educators. Therefore the ideal job that I would like with the CCW/AFTEF would be the Union Vice President for the early care educators in the southern states. This job would include meeting monthly with educators, providers, community leaders, and state legislatures to discuss improvements in the childcare workplace and better compensations. The qualifications would be to have a masters degree, experience as a early childhood teacher/director, advocacy background, and knowledge on state childcare policies.
The second organization would be the Child Care Services Association which is a non-profit that ensures affordable, accessible, high quality child care for all families through research and advocacy. They offer free referral services, technical assistance, educational scholarships, and salary supplements to child care professionals through the T.E.A.C.H early childhood project. The job that I would like is to be the Technical Assistance Associate. The job includes training staff, collect data, and partner with the families and community to bring awareness on early childhood. It requires to have a masters degree and extensive travel throughout the country.
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment founded by Marcy Whitebook mission is to focus on achieving comprehensive public investments which enable and reward the early childhood workforce to deliver high quality care and education for all children. They conduct research and propose policy solutions to improve children's optimal development. Job opportunity include being a Specialist that does research on early childhood topics or federal/state mandates and propose solutions that will benefit those who work in the early childhood field.
I would love to work at any of these organizations because they are about bringing change to those who work in the early childhood field. These organizations are not well known especially in the southern states (AL, GA, MS, LA, SC). The Child Care Services Association is located in North Carolina but I am sure that there are many educators that are not aware of their existance. I hope that more educators in the field will learn about these organzations and get involved like I will be doing in the near future.
Reference:
The Center for Child Care Workforce. http://www.ccw.org/
Child Care Service Association. http://www.childcareservices.org/
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/
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