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. This center uses a research-to-practice model to strengthen compensation and career advancement for early educators.
A collective of four partner organizations informed by collaborating partners, ECE educators, federal agencies, and other advisory bodies, the National ECE Workforce 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. We view these as key mechanisms for facilitating the successful recruitment and retention of a qualified, effective workforce and critical to providing high-quality experiences for children and families across all ECE settings and programs.
Key Topics
The foundation of our work is based on five key policy areas, or key topics, sourced from the Early Childhood Workforce Index created by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE).
Compensation & Financial Relief Strategies
Investments and initiatives to ensure compensation equal to that of a skilled professional, accounting for an educator’s qualifications, expertise, and experience
Financial Resources
Public and private investment in the ECE workforce and broader ECE system
Qualifications & Educational Support
Policies and pathways that strengthen career pathways and access to degrees and credentials and provide consistent standards for educators to achieve higher education
Work Environment Standards
Standards for providing safe, supportive work environments for early educators
Workforce Data
State-level collection of data on the size, characteristics, and working conditions of the ECE workforce
Our Focus
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
Our work toward these aims is guided by the center’s “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 three primary drivers that, together, can produce systems change:
- Practice Drivers: The programmatic and policy actions taken to achieve the aims.
- Infrastructure Drivers: The structural aspects necessary for achieving and sustaining the aims.
- 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 services and resources, including technical assistance and research offerings, around these primary and secondary drivers when working with states and communities on intentional, coordinated action to build a stable and qualified ECE workforce.
For a detailed guide to the primary and secondary drivers, as well as guidance on using the Change Framework to guide systems change, see our “Introduction to the ECE Workforce Systems Change Framework.”
Our Approach
The National ECE Workforce Center’s research-to-practice model supports local and state leaders in implementing ECE systems change to improve career pathways, work environments, and compensation systems and strategies for the workforce. Teams of researchers, technical assistance specialists, and communicators bring content expertise, consultation, tools, and thought partnership to states and communities through a variety of approaches—while ensuring the center’s research and resources get in the hands of people who can use them. In our engagements with communities and states, we focus on developing the cross-disciplinary capacity and solutions that are necessary to create sustainable change for the ECE workforce.
Using this integrated approach, our teams can be nimble and responsive to the needs of the field and ensure the strategies, resources, and tools promoted by the National ECE Workforce Center are based on the latest evidence and draw on experts and strategic partners.
Some examples of our intensive, targeted, and universal approaches include:
Intensive: Taking Action
Grounded in our research-to-practice model, Action Research Partnerships are 12- to 18-month, intensive engagements designed to increase teams’ capacity to lead systems change through integrated learning and action. We will also use Action Research Partnerships to 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 Planning
Through targeted engagements, we aim to facilitate shared learning opportunities around needs that arise in the field. Our current offerings include: Coffee Chats, a chance for ECE system, program, and community leaders to engage and identify action steps to take using the National ECE Workforce Center’s research-to-practice briefs; Communities for Action, through which our technical assistance experts support teams in creating action plans toward their career pathway and compensation goals; and the Early Educator Advisory Board, a paid program that ensures the work of the Center is meaningful and impactful to the workforce.
Universal: Supporting Action
With an eye toward national progress, we develop resources and tools intended to bolster capacity and leadership in all states and localities. Our materials are drawn from targeted landscape scans, which identify trends and innovations happening in the field as well as research evidence that guides and evaluates these innovations. We use these to inform a series of research-to-practice briefs that provide evidence-based guidance to early education leaders looking to advance compensation and career advancement for the ECE workforce. We also produce short, responsive products called “highlights” that summarize policy developments or emerging research on a pressing topic to the field.
🔎 Connect & Learn More
Stay connected to keep up to date with the latest happenings at the National ECE Workforce Center!
- Follow, like, share, and comment on our social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Bluesky
- Be sure to visit our YouTube page. There, you will find recordings of previous events and learn more about “the why” behind our work from leaders in the ECE field.