Over the past two years, The Improve Group has assisted with development of the Minnesota’s Great Workforce for Early Care and Education Annual Report. The early learning field has a range of career options, from providers of direct care in family child care homes and teachers in center- or school-based programs, to coaches, trainers, administrators, educators, and mentors. The field is diverse and career opportunities continue to expand.
The focus of this report is to document the efforts to build and support a “Great Workforce” for those providing early care and education supports to children, and the personnel that support these early educators. The report is a collaborative effort with the Minnesota Departments of Education, Health, and Human Services, as well as many partners working to support Minnesota’s early learning field.
In order to understand the range of activities across the early learning field, The Improve Group facilitated meetings that convened representatives from the state agencies and partnering organizations. Participants provided perspectives from different topic areas and individual initiatives, shared information about collaborative efforts, discussed accomplishments, and identified challenges for the work. While individual interviews were also conducted, the approach of facilitating group conversations had several advantages, such as:
- Contributions from many voices, leading to a common understanding
- Ability to capture ideas from a shared perspective
- Discussion of findings within a shared context
- Development of realistic and actionable recommendations
The report informs the continued efforts to align resources to build and support Minnesota’s early learning workforce. The Improve Group will continue to work on the reporting efforts for Minnesota’s Great Workforce for Early Care and Education. Check out the findings from the 2013 and 2014 annual reports below: