Early childhood educators and child care providers are the workforce behind the workforce. When child care is unavailable or unreliable, it not only limits parents’ economic mobility but also reduces their workforce participation across all industries, exacerbating labor shortages and slowing America’s economic growth. Nationwide, child care disruptions cost working parents an estimated $78 billion (B) annually in lost earnings and productivity, businesses $23B in reduced revenue and recruitment costs, and taxpayers $21B in lost tax revenue. Without accessible, high-quality child care, working parents face a significant barrier to workforce entry and advancement. Unfortunately, on average, more than 160,000 ECE worker vacancies are projected each year through 2033, translating to tens of thousands of empty ECE classrooms nationally.
Like many ECE providers, YWCA Metro St. Louis in Missouri struggled to recruit and retain early educators, leaving classrooms empty and families without care. The YWCA is a leading provider of high-quality education, childcare, and family support services for income-eligible families. It is the largest provider of Head Start services in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County, serving over 1,200 children across their network of 21 centers and community partners.
In 2023, in response to this challenge, the YWCA, under the direction of Stacy Johnson, Chief Early Education Officer and Head Start Director, launched the Successful Pathways® Registered Apprenticeship (RA) program to build a sustainable pipeline of early educators in partnership with the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development. YWCA’s Early Education and Workforce Development program combines Successful Pathways® with CREED (Career Readiness, Economic Empowerment, and Development) to empower low-income women and single mothers to achieve financial independence and career advancement while strengthening their families and communities. Successful Pathways provides valuable professional development, education, on-the-job training, mentorship, and support to help recruit and retain a highly qualified ECE staff in YWCA-affiliated programs. Complementing this, CREED provides job training, tuition assistance, and financial literacy courses.
Two years later, the YWCA program is thriving with strong support from the St. Louis Agency for Training and Employment (SLATE) and the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. Classrooms are fully staffed, and there is a waitlist of eager apprentice candidates ready to begin their careers in ECE!
Interested in learning more about how YWCA Metro St. Louis has opened all its classrooms and achieved success with its ECE RA program? Want to hear from YWCA partners and state and national experts about how to support and strengthen the workforce behind the workforce?
Midwest Urban Strategies (MUS), on behalf of the Early Childhood Workforce Connector (ECWC), invites you to a special free event on-site from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on October 29, 2025, ECE Registered Apprenticeship Accelerator: YWCA Metro St. Louis.
This event will spotlight how RA programs can be a powerful solution for the child care workforce crisis, especially for Head Start and Early Head Start providers, bolstering access to and quality of the workforce behind the workforce.
Join us to:
· Tour a YWCA Metro St. Louis Head Start center
· Learn the fundamentals of Registered Apprenticeship and how it supports workforce development
· Hear directly from YWCA leadership and apprentices about their RA journey
· Connect with cross-sector leaders, ECE and workforce stakeholders, employers, and community-based organizations
· Understand why ECE professionals are the workforce behind the workforce
· Learn how RA programs align with ECE workforce development and Head Start and Early Head Start standards
· Discover innovative workforce solutions to solve staffing challenges in child care
· Gain insight into how the YWCA Successful Pathways® program has extended ECE RA to other child care employers in the community
Register here!
The YWCA Metro St. Louis model demonstrates that when early childhood educators are supported holistically, classrooms stay open, families thrive, and communities grow stronger. By investing in the workforce behind the workforce, we help families, bolster the local economy, open opportunities for early childhood educators, and create a sustainable child care sector. We hope you can join us on October 29th to see the community impact of YWCA Metro St. Louis and how you can be a part of the solution to the child care workforce crisis.
