Neighborhood Villages Partners with State, City Officials to Launch New Apprenticeship Program for Early Education Workforce
Program is Urgently Needed to Help Address Major Workforce Crisis in Early Education
BOSTON, MA (January 23, 2023) - Neighborhood Villages has formally launched its new Registered Apprenticeship Program, an urgently needed tool to help address the major workforce crisis that the early education field is facing right now. This new program is part of the Neighborhood Villages’ Comprehensive Workforce Pathways (CWP) initiative, launched in Nov. 2022 with a $1 million grant from the City of Boston.
A grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development is allowing Neighborhood Villages to expand and extend its Registered Apprenticeship Program, which offers non-college pathways to those entering or looking to advance in the field of early education and care as lead teachers or directors.
The program was announced at a kickoff event this weekend at Epiphany Early Learning Center in Dorchester, attended by city officials and advocates, as well as approximately 50 apprentices and their mentors and instructors.
“The early education sector is facing an unprecedented workforce crisis that is having a dire impact on educators, families and children across our state,” said Binal Patel, Chief Program Officer at Neighborhood Villages. “This apprenticeship program will help address this crisis by supporting educators on their pathway in early education with instruction, on the job training, mentorship, wage bumps, and wraparound support such as technology and coaching. We are grateful to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development and the City of Boston for their support and look forward to continuing to work together to address these urgent workforce challenges.”
“Apprenticeship is an effective and essential earn-and-learn strategy to address our state’s current and future workforce needs,” said Patrick Mitchell, Director of the Division of Apprentice Standards, a state agency under the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. “It’s our goal at the Division of Apprentice Standards to connect people to high-demand job opportunities across the Commonwealth through equitable access to training and employers. I’d like to congratulate Neighborhood Villages for launching their new apprenticeship program!”
"To serve our children and families well, we must invest in the early childhood workforce that cares for and nurtures our youngest learners each day,” said Kristin McSwain, Senior Advisor to Boston Mayor Wu and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood. “We are so excited to support Neighborhood Villages' apprenticeship program, which will help provide early educators with the tools and resources they need as they enter and advance in the field."
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a full-blown workforce crisis for the ECE sector in Massachusetts and across the country, increasing workforce churn and propelling an unprecedented exodus of educators from the field. Nationally, we are still missing more than 100,000 of early educators who were previously in the field and in Massachusetts, job levels for the child care sector are still 23.5% below pre-pandemic levels. Without the ability to retain teachers, many providers have been forced to close entire classrooms, exacerbating access challenges for families.
The Apprenticeship Program for Early Educators offers non-college pathways to educators and future administrators looking to advance in the field of early education and care. It combines onsite job coaching and mentoring with skills training and incremental wage increases as competency and knowledge progress, working to ensure that each apprentice is supported through their professional development journey. The program requires a stable wage for apprentices at a minimum of $17/hour with additional wage bumps throughout the program, and will also provide training, support, and stipends for mentors.
There are two separate programs—the Lead Teacher Program, which supports new teachers looking to become lead teacher qualified, and the Early Childhood Emerging Leaders Program for experienced lead teachers or current administrators looking for leadership roles. Both programs are free-of-charge, 12 months long, offered in English and Spanish, and support apprentices at every step of the journey.
The apprenticeship program is part of Neighborhood Villages’ CWP program, a three-year initiative that will cumulatively serve more than 500 early educators and administrators (including more than 350 in Boston) and will help bolster the Commonwealth’s capacity to recruit, retain, and invest in high-quality early educators and administrators. Neighborhood Villages’ CWP initiative also receives funding from the Wellington Management Foundation, Lynch Foundation, and Highland Street Foundation.
With the CWP, Neighborhood Villages bolsters its existing portfolio of workforce development programming, in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, including Professional Pathways, which connects early educators to college pathways to launch careers in early education and pursue advanced credentials, and Business Management Training, which supports child care providers’ access to financial training and technical assistance in successfully running their child care businesses.
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About Neighborhood Villages
Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change non-profit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. For more information, visit https://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-work.