Workforce Development
Support for early care and education

With the support of the Texas Workforce Commission, a number of programs offer financial and organizational opportunities for people who work in early care and education programs.

T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood^® Texas
In an effort to address the need for a well-qualified, fairly compensated, and stable workforce, the T.E.A.C.H. Project was created in 1990 in North Carolina. It now operates in 23 states and the District of Columbia, offering comprehensive scholarships to enable early childhood teachers to take coursework leading to credentials and degrees at local community colleges and universities. The model requires that early childhood teachers commit to staying in their early care and education program or field for six months to 18 months, depending on the scholarship model.

T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood^® Texas provides educational scholarship opportunities for child care center directors, teachers, and home-based child care providers who are licensed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Child Care Licensing. College scholarship seekers must work a minimum of 30 hours a week and make less than $15 an hour. Compensation and benefits include travel stipends for each semester, a completion bonus at the end of the commitment year, a stipend for college tuition and books, and center compensation for release time.

Additionally, T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood^® Texas offers stipends to cover Child Development Associate (CDA) application fees from the Council for Professional Recognition and a compensation bonus upon the completion of the credential.

Scholarship applications are currently being accepted for both college courses and the CDA assessment fees. For more information, including administrative and counseling support, go to www.texasaeyc.org and click on the T.E.A.C.H. logo.

Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System
The Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System (TECPDS) is designed to help meet the professional development needs of those working in the early childhood field. The system has distinct features that enable users to review employment opportunities, identify vetted training and trainers, and maintain professional development profiles.

Texas Workforce Registry (TWR)
The Texas Workforce Registry (TWR) is a web-based application for early childhood professionals to keep track of their education, employment history, and accrued clock hours of in-service training.

The system is designed to allow for the creation of a professional development profile or portfolio—a tidy package of a teacher’s education and employment history. The registry also allows users to view reports, evaluate trainings, review core competencies, and peruse a list of job openings on the Job Board.

Directors of programs can also access the system with all the basic features plus facility reports and the ability to post position openings on the Job Board.

Texas Trainer Registry (TTR)
The Texas Trainer Registry (TTR) lists approved early childhood trainers and their courses. To be listed in the registry, trainers must apply and meet eligibility criteria based on their education, training, and experience in the early care and education field. Trainers then offer course proposals that are reviewed and approved based on the relevancy of content, benefits to the target audience, and the inclusion of adult learning practices and training methodologies.

Programs and organizations can access training courses through the registry to satisfy specific training needs, knowing that the trainer will offer meaningful content reflective of the best practices in the field.

TECPDS is a collaboration between the UT Health Science Center at Houston, the Children’s Learning Institute, Texas Head Start, and the Texas Early Learning Council. For more information, go to www.tecpds.org.