Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation

By Linda K. Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Early Childhood Development

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NCR) released Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation  this month, one of the most important studies of the workforce in our nation’s history.

This study grew out of a workshop sponsored in 2011 by the Office of Child Care with the IOM and the National Research Council. The workshop was to describe the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.  As a result of that workshop, ACF decided that a full study with recommendations was needed. In conjunction with public and private partners and the staff at the Institute of Medicine, this consensus study was the next step.

This study and its recommendations are not only timely but also necessary. They support the national discussion about child care and the President’s Early Learning Plan. Today, there is a recognition that access to high-quality, early childhood care and education is essential to giving all children a strong beginning. It is also understood that the workforce provides the key to this. As we know, the relationship of the adult to the child and the ability of the adult to understand and support the comprehensive nature of a child’s development can change the trajectory of a child’s life.

This study acknowledges the neuroscience – children are already learning at birth. The science makes clear the complexity of working with children. Health, development and learning in the early years is rapid and cumulative – and is the foundation for all learning. The report also stresses the need to professionalize the workforce and develop a cohesive plan which puts all segments of the workforce (from family child care providers to Pre K teachers) on the pathway to higher education. It stresses the need for a unified foundation based on sound child development and early learning principles.

Fifteen years ago, a committee was set up under the auspices of the Institute of Medicine to study the broad knowledge base that we have about development in the early years of life—both the research on brain development and the behavioral and social sciences. From Neurons to Neighborhoods: the Science of Early Childhood Development came out in late 2000 as a report to use to bring science to the public policy arena and to those who work with children.  Just as we continue to use that study, Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation will guide our public and private conversations and investments in the decade ahead.

We will be carefully reviewing and considering the recommendations in this report. I look forward to working with our public and private partners in the future as we learn from this study and begin to work to build a better system of support for our early learning teachers.