Early Care and Education Leadership and Management Roles: Beyond Homes and Centers.

This article reports on a study, among the first in the United States, to examine staff working in early care and education infrastructure organizations, a growing segment of the workforce. This exploratory study used an online survey of 1,091 staff in three different types of organizations in California that receive public funding—child care resource and referral programs, local child care coordinators, and local First 5 Commissions. This study develops a portrait of the demographic and education background of this segment of the workforce, the types of job functions performed, professional development needed, and how this population differs from the direct service workforce. Findings indicate that, like the direct service workforce, staff members in infrastructure organizations are ethnically and linguistically diverse, and they face job-level stratification based on these characteristics. The majority of staff provides direct services, such as training to child care providers, parents, and other organizations, and many are involved in research, planning, and development. Findings also indicate that the education and professional background of staff varies, and that child development, management, and supervision are areas in which staff members most identify wanting additional knowledge. These results, both promising and concerning, suggest that infrastructure staff play an integral role in shaping and delivering services and programs, yet little attention has been paid to their professional knowledge and needs, amplifying the necessity for further research to better understand the range of responsibilities of infrastructure staff and for policies to support their professional development.