As you have heard from me every month, child care providers and early childhood educators are the workforce behind the workforce. A lack of early childhood education (ECE) professionals leads to fewer child care options, shrinking the available labor pool across all industries. This is especially true in rural areas, where child care deserts deeply impact local economies, labor markets, and economic development. We know that building sustainable, scalable Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs strengthens the ECE workforce, which in turn benefits the community as a whole.
In Alaska, the Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL CAP) has been running a successful Early Childhood Educator RA program since Fall 2024. Last year, the program’s leadership realized they wanted to grow and expand career opportunities in Early Childhood Education (ECE). They noticed that child care providers were short-staffed and recruiting community members with no classroom experience as teachers, which led to high levels of turnover and burnout. As both the RA program sponsor and one of the employers, RurAL CAP understood the importance of creating a pipeline of highly skilled and highly qualified educators, and they decided to pursue developing a Youth Apprenticeship (YA) program that can link to their current RA program.
As they did when they developed their ECE RA program, they reached out to a national organization with expertise in YA for support. The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), a project of The Center on Education & Labor in New America, is a multi-year, collaborative initiative that supports efforts to expand access to high-quality YA programs. RurAL CAP met with PAYA experts through their partnership with the Early Childhood Workforce Connector (ECWC), an RA industry intermediary co-founded by MUS, and decided to apply for a PAYA grant to support the development of their YA program. They envisioned the YA as an opportunity to streamline the entry process to their current RA program and meet the needs of local youth and providers, and were awarded the grant in 2025.
While there is no federal definition of YA (some states have defined it in law and regulations, but not many), PAYA’s definition for high-quality YA has four key components, each closely aligned with the national definition for RA:
- Paid, on-the-job learning under the supervision of skilled employee mentors
- Ongoing assessment against established skills and competency standards
- Related, classroom-based instruction
- Culmination in a portable, industry-recognized credential and postsecondary credit
These elements are the cornerstones of the technical assistance PAYA provides to grantees.
The PAYA grant allowed RurAL CAP to explore how to develop an ECE YA program, partner with high schools and community-based organizations, and think creatively and dream big with experts who can help make their dreams reality. The grant also gave RurAL CAP the resources to use data and other information to present to critical stakeholders, such as parents, local workforce boards, and philanthropy.
RurAL CAP’s first YA program cohort starts this month with about five apprentices. Young adults, ages 16-24, are eligible to become youth apprentices. ECE is a popular Career and Technical Education program of study, which indicates a strong interest in the industry. The program will be open to both in-school and out-of-school youth, opening a door to a pathway opportunity youth don’t often know exists. For in-school youth, the two-year YA program could start in their junior year of high school and continue through graduation or start in their senior year and finish after graduation. They will be able to transition seamlessly into the RA program afterward if they choose. Out-of-school youth will need to find an opportunity to earn their high school diploma or the equivalent to be eligible for the RA program once they complete the YA program. Either way, youth apprentices will earn their Child Development Associate credential and up to 10 college credits.
RurAL CAP has begun to collaborate with the Alaska Workforce Investment Board (the state’s sole workforce development board). RurAL CAP has received a grant from AWIB and has been in discussions about WIOA funding and support for both the YA and the RA programs. As one of the few YA programs for in-school and out-of-school youth, RurAL CAP will be a key partner for AWIB and WIOA youth funds.
