Child Care Workforce Training: What Parents Learn Fast

A Denver child care director telling a pregnant family “maybe 2027 or 2028” isn’t a quirky anecdote. It’s a signal that the early care and education system is running with too few trained people, too little capacity, and far too much strain on the professionals who remain.

That moment—shared by journalist Emily Tate Sullivan after years reporting on early childhood education and then becoming a parent—captures something the workforce conversation often misses: child care isn’t just a family issue. It’s a skills and workforce development issue. When the early childhood workforce can’t grow, everyone downstream feels it: employers lose workers, communities lose economic momentum, and children lose consistent early learning experiences.

This post uses that reporter-to-parent pivot as a lens for our Education, Skills, and Workforce Development series. The thesis is straightforward: we won’t fix access, affordability, or quality in early learning without fixing training, career pathways, and working conditions for the people doing the work.

Early care is the first workforce pipeline

Early care and education is where workforce readiness starts—both for kids and for parents. For children, the “skills” are foundational: language, self-regulation, motor development, early numeracy, and the social habits that make later learning possible. For adults, reliable child care is what turns a job offer into a job accepted.

Emily’s reporting describes what many first-time observers underestimate: how physical, relational, and cognitively demanding the work is with babies and toddlers. A room of infants isn’t “babysitting.” It’s a continuous loop of safety management, emotional attunement, language-rich interaction, and developmental scaffolding.

Here’s the hard truth: we treat early childhood education like infrastructure (essential), but fund and staff it like a side project (optional). That mismatch is why waitlists stretch years in many areas, why turnover is high, and why quality varies so widely.

The “invisible” skills that make great caregivers

Ask people what makes an excellent early childhood educator and you’ll hear warmth, patience, and love. True, but incomplete. The job also requires teachable, assessable professional skills, such as:

• Responsive caregiving (reading cues, co-regulating emotions, building secure attachment)
• Developmental observation (noticing small changes and adjusting activities accordingly)
• Language modeling (narrating, turn-taking, expanding vocabulary in real time)
• Behavior support (guiding toddlers through big feelings without escalation)
• Health and safety protocols (feeding, sleep practices, sanitation, injury prevention)
• Family partnership (communicating daily, aligning routines, handling conflict calmly)

When we don’t build these skills systematically—through onboarding, coaching, and credentials—we leave quality to chance and burn out people who are trying to “figure it out” alone.

The waitlist problem is a capacity-and-training problem

Long waitlists aren’t caused by demand alone; they’re also caused by constrained supply, often driven by staffing limits. Most licensed programs can’t expand classrooms without meeting adult-to-child ratios. Ratios require staff. Staff require recruiting, training, and retention.

Emily expected to join long lists in Denver. Even she was shocked by the timeline: care slots potentially years away. That’s what happens when:

• Wages don’t match responsibility, so educators leave for higher-paying jobs with less stress.
• Training is expensive or fragmented, so the pipeline of new educators stays thin.
• Career growth is unclear, so talented people don’t see a future in the field.
• Burnout is normalized, so turnover becomes the default.

A useful way to think about this is: child care deserts are often talent deserts. Not because people don’t care, but because the system doesn’t make it viable to stay.

Nanny shares are a workaround, not a solution

Emily’s family moved toward a nanny share—common for families who can’t find (or can’t tolerate the uncertainty of) center-based care. Nanny shares can be wonderful. They can also create a separate market where families compete for a limited pool of caregivers.

Two workforce dynamics show up here:

1. Trust becomes the “selection mechanism.” Families aren’t just hiring skills; they’re hiring confidence.
2. Training standards vary wildly. Some nannies have deep early childhood training; others learn on the job without support.

If you want a stable early learning sector, you can’t rely on private workarounds. You need strong, scaled pathways that prepare caregivers across settings—centers, family child care homes, and in-home care.

What better training actually looks like (and why it works)

Effective early childhood workforce development is practical, paid, and connected to a real career ladder. The field doesn’t need more inspirational posters about “teachers shaping the future.” It needs systems that make professional growth routine.

Emily’s reporting history includes examples of programs experimenting with access—like free online college courses for early childhood educators in Utah. That’s directionally right: reduce barriers, increase flexibility, and respect educators as professionals.

Here are the training moves that tend to produce results in real workplaces.

1) Paid onboarding that teaches the job you’re doing

The fastest way to lose a new hire is to throw them into a classroom and hope they “pick it up.” A strong onboarding plan includes:

• Shadowing and gradual responsibility increases
• Clear safety routines (feeding, sleep, incident reporting)
• Communication norms with families
• A short list of “non-negotiables” for quality interactions

If programs can’t pay for onboarding time, they’ll keep paying for turnover.

2) Coaching beats one-off workshops

Workshops can motivate, but coaching changes practice. The best coaching models are light, frequent, and specific:

• 15–30 minute observation cycles
• One targeted behavior to improve (not ten)
• Video reflection (when appropriate and consented)
• Follow-up within a week

For infant-toddler classrooms, coaching topics that matter include responsive language, transitions, and co-regulation strategies.

3) Stackable credentials tied to raises

Credentials only work as a workforce strategy when they lead somewhere. A stackable pathway might look like:

1. Entry certificate (safety + basics of child development)
2. Infant-toddler specialization
3. Lead teacher credential
4. Coaching or director track

Each step should be linked to:

• Wage increases
• Role clarity
• Increased planning time

Otherwise, you’re asking people to invest in training while their rent keeps rising.

4) Apprenticeships and “earn while you learn” routes

Early childhood education is a prime fit for apprenticeships: paid work combined with structured learning and mentorship.

A well-designed apprenticeship can:

• Bring in career-changers (a big 2025–2026 labor trend)
• Reduce student debt barriers
• Improve consistency in classroom practice

This is workforce development that respects reality: adults need income while they train.

Quality for children depends on job quality for adults

You can’t separate child outcomes from educator working conditions. Emily’s essay describes something every parent learns quickly: babies are building skills constantly—discovering hands, grasping objects, reacting to caregiver presence, forming relationships.

That development doesn’t happen because of a fancy curriculum. It happens because an adult is present, stable, and responsive.

So if we’re serious about outcomes, we have to be serious about job design:

• Paid planning and documentation time (not squeezed into lunch)
• Predictable schedules that reduce burnout
• Mental health supports (secondary trauma is real in early childhood settings)
• Leadership training for directors, who often get promoted without management development

One of my strongest opinions here: the sector spends too much time debating curriculum and not enough time building educator capacity. A solid caregiver with good coaching will outperform a glossy curriculum implemented by exhausted staff.

What employers can do (yes, employers)

Because this post is part of a workforce series, it’s worth stating plainly: child care instability is a talent retention problem for every industry. Employers aren’t powerless.

Real supports include:

• Child care benefits or stipends (even partial support helps)
• Backup care options for disruptions
• Predictable scheduling (especially for hourly workers)
• Partnerships with local providers to fund educator training seats

If businesses invest in early care capacity, they’re investing in their own workforce reliability.

Practical next steps: a 30-day plan for leaders

If you run a program, fund one, or build training for it, you can make progress fast. Here’s a realistic 30-day plan that doesn’t require a perfect policy environment.

1. Map your roles and skill needs

   • List each role (assistant, lead, floater, director)
   • Define 5–7 observable skills for each

2. Audit training access

   • What does a new hire get in week 1?
   • Who coaches them in month 1?
   • What training is required vs. optional?

3. Create a “minimum viable onboarding”

   • One checklist for safety and routines
   • One checklist for interaction quality
   • Two hours of paid shadowing minimum (more is better)

4. Pilot micro-coaching

   • One classroom
   • One target skill (like transitions)
   • Weekly 20-minute cycles

5. Tie growth to compensation

   • Even a small, transparent raise structure improves retention
   • Publish it internally so it feels real

These are not glamorous steps. They work because they treat early childhood education like the skilled profession it is.

The stance worth taking in 2025: stop calling it “daycare” policy

Emily’s story—moving from reporting on early learning to living it—highlights the emotional and logistical stakes for families. But it also exposes a structural truth: child care is a workforce system depending on a workforce that we undertrain and underpay.

For our Education, Skills, and Workforce Development series, this is the thread to pull: early learning is where human capital begins, and it’s also what enables parents to participate in the labor market. If we want a stronger economy and better student outcomes later, the early childhood workforce has to be treated like a strategic priority.

If you’re building training programs, funding professional development, or shaping hiring pipelines, focus on one question: What would it take for a talented caregiver to choose this work—and stay for five years? The answers are knowable. The work is hard. The path forward is clearer than it gets credit for.