The Child Care WAGE$® Project, a program of Child Care Services Association that is funded by the Partnership through Smart Start, recently launched an online project to highlight the voices of its participants.
Lack of resources and an effort to maintain affordability for parents often make it difficult for child care programs to reward or encourage teacher education through salaries. As a result, many wonderful teachers leave the field or never even consider the profession an option. WAGE$ was created in response to this need, and the program provides education-based salary supplements to low-paid teachers, directors and family child care providers working with children between the ages of birth-5. It is an evidence-based project designed to provide children more stable relationships with better-educated teachers by incentivizing and rewarding teacher education and continuity of care.
As a way to shine a light on the hard-working and caring teachers in our local early childhood programs, WAGE$ has launched a Facebook project called “I Am WAGE$” that features testimonials from participants who have benefitted from the program. Check out the first 2 here, and follow Child Care Services Association on Facebook to see more during the next few months.
Thanks in part to Smart Start funding, there were 247 WAGE$ participants at more than 100 child care programs in Durham during the 2014-15 school year. For more information about WAGE$, please click here.
