Intensive support to inform sustainable systems change
Through Action Research Partnerships, the National ECE Workforce Center lends our technical assistance and research capabilities to leaders in states, territories, Tribes, and localities who are working to improve ECE career ladders, compensation, and workplace policies.
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 pair state and local program and policy leaders with a cross-disciplinary team of specialists from our Center who have ECE workforce research and policy content expertise and deep technical assistance knowledge. Together, the Action Research Partnership works collaboratively to leverage learnings from research and innovative policy strategies to create bold, sustainable change to support the ECE workforce.
Through these intensive engagements, the Center is committed to building evidence about what works to fundamentally shift systems in support of the ECE workforce and disseminating those learnings to the larger field.
Who are they for?
Action Research Partnerships engage cohorts of state-/community-level “change teams” who are ready to work on specific practice and infrastructure changes that will improve ECE career ladders, compensation, and workplace policies.
Change teams include 10-12 people who represent multiple perspectives, experiences, and roles including:
- System/program leaders with administrative oversight and decision-making authority
- Educators with expertise working directly with children in center- and home-based settings
- Other relevant roles based on the Action Research Partnership topic (e.g., Head Start Collaboration Office lead, representative from an institution of higher education)
Action Research Partnerships require the commitment to contribute staff and leadership capacity consistently throughout the entire engagement. For those with less capacity to engage intensively or who are earlier in their journey to change career ladders or compensation, the Center will offer Communities for Action and other supports.
How do they work?
We are looking to partner with change teams whose goals for impacting policy and practice for their ECE workforce align with the Center’s priorities for improving ECE career ladders, compensation, and workplace policies. Prospective change teams should be willing to engage in our Systems Change Framework approach to sustainable systems change.
Once teams are selected to participate, an Action Research Partnership has four phases:
In addition to the Center’s skilled staff, the National ECE Workforce Center will leverage expertise from its collaborating partners, Integrated Policy & Research Fellowship fellows, Early Educator Advisory Board, and others to support change teams and ensure that the work is informed by multiple perspectives in the field.
Current offerings
In 2025, we will launch three Action Research Partnerships aligned to the following focus areas:
- Designing and implementing sustainable wage scales aligned with career pathways—Cohort of two states working to design a plan for funding, implementing, and sustaining an aligned wage scale and career ladder at scale: targeted recruitment for this Action Research Partnership is underway, with plans to launch in May 2025
- Revising existing career pathways to incorporate experience—Cohort of 3-4 states: recruitment to begin May 2025
- Designing and implementing wage scales with Head Start programs and their communities—Cohort of 4-6 Head Start programs: recruitment to begin October 2025
New Mexico Pilot
The National ECE Workforce Center is piloting an Action Research Partnership with New Mexico to inform the development and implementation of a wage scale and career ladder for the state’s early childhood professionals in child care, pre-K, home visiting, and early intervention. The New Mexico Action Research Partnership is led by a cross-disciplinary team of technical assistance specialists, researchers, and content experts representing the Center’s core and collaborating partners. This team supports the New Mexico Change Team led by the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD).