Child Care Aware of Minnesota has embarked on a partnership with the Minnesota Department of Education and Family and Consumer Sciences educators to support high school students that may be interested in early childhood education as a profession. This project aims to create excitement and interest by offering students no-cost options to explore careers in the field.

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) is the comprehensive body of skills, research, and knowledge that helps people make informed decisions about their well-being, relationships, and resources to achieve optimal quality of life. The field represents many areas, including human development, personal and family finance, housing and interior design, food science, nutrition, wellness, textiles and apparel, and consumer issues. All Minnesota FCS high school programs are transitioning to a career pathway focus.

We are currently working with the Department to align their curriculum with the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential and to get existing early childhood education courses approved, so that high school students could work on their CDA before they even graduate. We are also working to educate high school FCS teachers about the CDA and develop clearer pathways to higher education in early childhood.

Reaching students while they are still in high school is an exciting way to build the pipeline of well-educated early childhood professionals. In addition, we are building partnerships among the many organizations that serve our profession.