Exploring Roles in teh ECE Community: Local and State Levels

I chose Child Care Aware of North East and North Central Kansas as the state organization to explore. This organization has a mission to help families find access to affordable, high quality childcare. They have several jobs in their organization including marketing and communications, finance, directors for quality initiatives, infant and toddler project managers, data and tech specialists, healthy kids coordinator and rating system specialists. I chose this organization because they are influential in my state and I believe in everything they are working for. Also the variety of jobs available gives more people a chance to collaborate with others. I did not see any job opportunities at the moment. The qualifications for most of these jobs is a B.S. degree in the related field. Another organization that I chose is our local Child & Resource Center Smart Start Program that I currently work for. I have been at this job for 5 years now and enjoy working with child care providers and center staff to help educate and improve their environment as well as their professional development opportunities. We currently have two positions open as Early Childhood Facilitators and the qualifications they are now looking for is a M.S. in ECE. The other job that I chose is the job of a professor at the university. I like this job because they collaborate with other organizations in our country as well as around the world. They are then able to do research that they can then try out in their lab preschool. I also like the teaching part of the job. I would have to have a PHD in order to do this and I do not see that happening. However, some staff for the undergraduates do have their M.S. degree's only. So, we will see what happens in the future. I do know that I would like to be involved with some kind of issue where I can actually make a difference and see change. Not that I do not get that on a smaller scale in my current job, because there are always success stories.