what you need to know before you get started

working with children | training requirments| your options

is working with children right for you?

Before you sign up for college courses, you might want to take some time to explore your career options. You might also want to examine why you want to work with children and what types of work you will find most fulfilling. You can begin by asking yourself some questions.

ISEEK (internet system for education and employment knowledge) is Minnesota's gateway to education, employment, and career resources. Explore these links on ISEEK to help you learn more about career options related to children and families. ISEEK also provides information on planning your education, finding a job, and wages and benefits.

Working Directly With Children •Child Care Worker •Elementary School Teachers •Personal and Home Care Aide •Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers •Recreation Worker •Residential Counselor •Special Education Teachers •Teacher Aids / Paraprofessionals

Working Directly With Families •Psychologist •Social Workers •Social and Human Service Assistants

Organizing Services For Children and Families •Education Administrators •Social and Community Service Managers

Providing Information About Children and Families To Others •University and College Teachers

Another way to explore career options is to assess your interests, values, skills, and aptitudes. Often career assessment is available through your local high school counseling office and college career placement centers. Try taking ISEEK's on-line skills assessment. ISEEK also provides links to other assessments.

The North Carolina System of Professional Development for Child Care Teachers and Administrators offers excellent resources for developing a professional development plan.

The career exploration pages will help you explore career options. It is similar to the information on ISEEK, but is more specific to the field of early childhood care and education. Remember, that the salary information reflects North Carolina wages.

Under career exploration, The North Carolina Association for the Education of Young Children offers three excellent tools for developing a personal and professional plan of action; one for teachers, one for administrators,, and one for community workers. Each tool provides a summary that you can print.

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training requirements:

Working with children and families encompasses many career paths. People who work with children can be found in settings like day care centers, head start programs, schools, social service agencies, homes, hospitals, government offices, and museums. Research continues to inform us about the importance of these early years. As a result, there is more and more concern about the adequate preparation of professionals who work with children. The trend is to require more specialized education in order to enter a job or a career working with children. In other situations, those who already work with children are seeing the need to improve their skills through training.

Currently, the most popular career paths include working in a child care center, working in a school-age program, becoming a paraprofessional in the public schools, opening a family child care home, teaching in Head Start, or going on to a four-year college to earn a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.

Each career path involving working with children has its own requirements for employment. Often these requirements include a combination of training and experience.

To find out more about Minnesota's training requirements for child care workers click below.

know your options:

Online learning is only one of many choices you have in your college education. You can take classes on campus days, nights, and even weekends. To find out the options available contact your home college for information on child development courses offered. Click here to visit our participating colleges page.

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