Why We Exist

Across our communities, people are doing work that matters deeply: educating children, supporting families, leading organizations, building businesses, and strengthening the systems others depend on. Yet too often, the people sustaining those systems are asked to keep giving without meaningful opportunities to grow themselves. We believe workforce sustainability requires more than training people to perform their current jobs. People also need belonging, connection, leadership development, coaching, economic opportunity, and meaningful pathways for advancement. They need somewhere to go next. We exist to help create those pathways.

How We Create Pathways

Early Childhood Education Leadership & Career Pathways

We invest in Early Childhood Education professionals who are ready to grow beyond their current roles, developing coaching, leadership, business, communication, and reflective-practice competencies that can create pathways from practitioner and business owner to mentor, coach, technical-assistance professional, trainer, and leader. Rather than losing experienced professionals when they are ready for something more, we want to create opportunities for them to move forward without having to leave the profession.

Pathway One: Early Childhood Emerging Leaders Cohort

Leadership does not begin when someone receives a title. It begins when people recognize their own capacity to influence, communicate, advocate, collaborate, make decisions, and strengthen the people around them. The Early Childhood Emerging Leaders Cohort is designed for ECE professionals who are ready to explore what leadership means for them and begin identifying where their experience could take them next. Through cohort-based professional learning, individualized coaching, peer connection, reflective practice, and applied leadership development, participants strengthen areas such as: Self-awareness • Professional identity • Communication • Confidence • Collaboration • Reflective practice • Problem-solving • Leadership capacity • Professional voice • Career direction. The cohort creates space for participants to move beyond asking:

“What kind of leader do I want to become?”

Participants can begin identifying pathways toward roles such as mentors, coaches, trainers, supervisors, administrators, advocates, program leaders, business leaders, and other positions within the broader ECE ecosystem. The Emerging Leaders Cohort is therefore not simply a leadership training program. It is a bridge between experience and opportunity.

Pathway Two: ECE Business Coaching Certificate

For experienced educators and child care business owners ready for a more defined professional pathway, Coaching Strategies offers a progressive Business Coaching Certificate designed to develop both coaching competency and specialized knowledge of child care business operations. This pathway recognizes something important: The people who understand ECE most deeply are often the people who have lived it. Years spent teaching children, communicating with families, managing classrooms, operating child care businesses, supervising employees, meeting regulations, managing enrollment, and navigating the realities of the profession create valuable expertise. Rather than allowing that knowledge to leave ECE when a professional is ready for a career change, we seek to help individuals transform lived professional experience into leadership capacity that can benefit others.

Business budgeting • Cost per child • Rate setting • Enrollment • Recordkeeping • Parent contracts • Iron Triangle metrics • Bookkeeping • Taxes • Marketing • Business growth • Access to capital

High School ECE Career Development Program

From Student to Early Childhood Professional

The High School ECE Career Development Program creates an intentional pathway for high school students to enter the Early Childhood Education profession with greater confidence, preparation, and understanding of where their careers can lead. The program partners with high schools that offer Child Development courses, Early Childhood Education pathways, or on-site child development centers, building upon the learning and hands-on experiences students are already receiving. Through career exploration, coaching-informed learning, and individualized career planning, students learn how to navigate the broader ECE ecosystem, including different types of early learning programs, entry-level employment opportunities, professional requirements, career pathways, education and credential options, and opportunities for long-term advancement. Students develop professional communication, workplace readiness, self-awareness, leadership skills, and a personalized ECE career plan while learning to recognize the value of the knowledge and experience they are already building.

Graduating Ready to Enter the Field

Each student completes the program with a professional ECE portfolio designed to help them transition from high school into employment. Portfolios may include a résumé, professional introduction, documented education and experience, transferable skills, career goals, references or recommendations, interview preparation, and an individualized professional development plan. The goal is not simply to help students find their first ECE job. We want young people entering the profession to understand from the beginning that Early Childhood Education can offer a career pathway.

High School Student → ECE Professional → Emerging Leader

Students who enter the ECE workforce after graduation become natural candidates for the Early Childhood Emerging Leaders Cohort, creating continuity between workforce entry and leadership development. As they gain professional experience, Coaching Strategies can continue supporting them in developing their identity, confidence, professional voice, leadership capacity, and career direction. This creates a longer-term pathway:

Child Development Student → Career Exploration & Planning → Professional ECE Portfolio → Employment in Early Childhood Education → Emerging Leaders Cohort → Leadership & Career Advancement

Rather than waiting until experienced educators are considering leaving the profession to talk about career sustainability, we begin that conversation before they enter it. Our goal is to help young people enter Early Childhood Education knowing where they can start, where they can grow, and where the profession could eventually take them.