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Section 3: Career Pathways

We believe that developing improved career pathways is key to the overall development of the early years and childcare sector and to addressing issues of recruitment and retention.

The Issue

3.1 The need to raise the status and professionalism of the early years and childcare workforce has already been highlighted. Linked to this is the need to build better opportunities for career progression. "Career pathways" is the term used to describe the routes available to staff to move within the sector and between related sectors. Building clearer pathways which support lateral (between and across sectors) and vertical (where workers increase their levels of responsibility) career progression can attract new recruits into the sector and help to retain experienced staff. We have described career pathways as being "vertical" or "lateral".

3.2 The early years and childcare workforce faces particular challenges in developing better career pathways. Workers have identified the lack of career development opportunities as a key concern. Currently there is little evidence of early years and childcare staff moving across the local authority, private and voluntary sectors and there continues to be significant barriers to this arising largely from pay and conditions differentials across the sectors. In addition, the current predominantly female workforce depends on relatively high numbers of part time and sessional workers who face particular difficulties in progressing their careers, for example difficulties in accessing training and development opportunities.

3.3 Recent policy developments underline the importance of effective and flexible career pathways for workers in the sector. More and more, the early years and childcare sector is delivering services involving workers from a range of professional backgrounds. We need to provide career opportunities for workers to practice in different settings, to encourage the exchange of good practice across the early years and childcare sector and the children's services workforce as a whole. Inevitably this would open up wider career opportunities for the workforce.

3.4 Additionally, as understanding of the significance of early years and childcare services increases, so do expectations about kinds of services and the quality of services that should be available to children and families. This places an important responsibility on employers to widen the experience and opportunities available to build on workers' skills and apply these in different circumstances or settings. There is also a need to recognise and nurture workers' specialist skills which support the inclusion of all children, for example with additional support needs, who require a particular expertise and knowledge. Very importantly, we need to ensure that career pathways support the professional development of the managers and leaders of the future.

3.5 We believe that developing improved career pathways is key to the overall development of the early years and childcare sector and to addressing issues of recruitment and retention. We have identified 5 key challenges and examples from practice that require to be addressed in developing improved career pathways.

5 key challenges

• The opportunity to move vertically or laterally in areas that work with children of a particular age group.
  Beverly is an experienced practitioner in an early years setting. She wants to gain promotion to lead practitioner but also realises that it may help her prospects if she gains more experience of the same job in another sector (e.g. voluntary). Currently there may be fewer promoted posts available than people who want them. It would also be difficult to move sector due to the pay differential that exists. Funding issues for the voluntary sector affect job security too.
• The opportunity to move vertically or laterally in areas that work with children of a different age group to that they currently work in.
  Lloyd is a support worker and wants to move between an early years centre and out of school care. However, we know a lot of out of school care jobs are part time and this may limit Lloyd's possibilities. Do employers collaborate to combine jobs to meet Lloyd's need for a full time job?
• The opportunity to move vertically or laterally in areas that work with children of all ages and their families.
  Carolyn works in out of school care and has an HNC but hasn't a lot of experience of working with parents. She wants to be a social worker, in the longer term, and an outreach worker in the short term while she achieves the necessary qualifications to embark on the social work degree course. Currently barriers would exist in terms of qualifications and Carolyn's lack of skills around working with parents. Is there some sort of induction training for potential new outreach workers?
• The opportunity to move vertically or laterally into specialist areas, e.g. working with children with special needs or health settings.
  Susan is an early years' practitioner who wants to work with children with autism. Specialist training would be required, but do the opportunities exist? If the job level was the same between mainstream and specialist, what additional rewards could the specialist worker expect from increased skill and responsibility?
• For some a desirable career path may also be becoming a trainer or assessor and take responsibility for the learning of other workers.
  Angus is an experienced lead practitioner and has had a few sessions tutoring students at the local college. He wants to become a trainer full time but doesn't know where to start looking for advice. He also worries that the opportunities don't exist in his area.

The Proposals

•Transparency, flexibility and choice;
•Qualifications which support - rather than hinder - a diverse range of career pathways;
•Rewarding workers for increasing responsibility and skill; and
•Attractive to a wide section of the community.

3.6 We have identified four key principles underpinning effective career pathways, which would address the problems outlined previously and help workers to plan and pursue their chosen careers. The key principles characterising strong career pathways are:

Transparency, Flexibility and choice

3.7 It is important that workers and new recruits in the sector have a range of options available to them, and that these are clear from the moment a worker enters the sector. The more transparent, flexible and open these options are, the greater the likelihood of attracting high calibre staff into the sector and of retaining qualified and ambitious workers. We need to develop qualification structures with flexible delivery which readily allow movement between sectors, and which allow people to enter the workforce at different points in their lives and careers. This point about flexible entry opportunities will become increasingly important as demographic changes take effect, and employers find themselves in increasing competition for a smaller pool of working-age people.

3.8 Qualification structures, which we explore in detail in the next section, are an important component of developing more transparent and flexible career pathways, but organisational cultures and attitudes amongst both workers and employers may be just as important. In particular, both the workforce and their employers must understand and recognise the existence of transferable skills, in order to give effect to the opportunities for staff movement and progression which we wish to promote.

3.9 Providing ease of movement between different parts of the sector and between the wider social services and children's services provides benefits in the quality of service delivery and in opportunities for staff. Currently, there are barriers to movement across the sector: for example, perceptions about the status of working in different settings can be a barrier, as can the lower pay in the voluntary and private sectors.

3.10 In encouraging individual workers to manage their careers, we need to ensure that the options that are open to them are well sign-posted. These options might include the types of job opportunity, the areas in which they might want to develop new expertise and the training and qualifications they will need. There is a key role for the manager of a service in assisting staff to access the information they need.

Qualifications which support, not hinder, a diverse range of career pathways

3.11 We need skilled qualified staff to provide the quality of services that children and families expect. In order to secure the flexible workforce we need, at a time when demographic trends are adding to pressures, to deliver integrated children's services, we need qualifications and training that support transfer between different types of provision within the sector, and transfer between the sector to other related professions.

Rewards workers for increasing responsibility and skill

3.12 In order to encourage workers to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to take on increasing responsibility, staff need differentiated levels of reward. Qualifications and training provide the mechanisms to assist staff to gain the new knowledge and skills which may be needed to progress. However, it is not the qualification itself which should attract the additional reward, but progression to take on additional responsibility, whether taking on supervisory or management responsibility or increasing practitioner expertise in a particular area. Employers also need to ensure that their staff have the right opportunities to develop their professional and management skills, so that they, in turn, can prepare staff to develop their careers.

Attractive to a wide section of the community

• to individuals who want to progress vertically, laterally or to continue to be challenged in their role.
• to individuals who want a real profession no matter the full time, part time or sessional nature of the job.

3.13 A sector which is attractive to a wide section of the community is likely to fare better than others in attracting new recruits and retaining good staff. Within the early years and childcare workforce there is a need to offer career pathways to those workers who are willing to achieve additional qualification and who have developed the experience required to progress into management positions. Pathways need to reflect the diversity of the workforce, to enable workers to build up their expertise at their own pace, in the workplace, whether developing skills to move to new areas of work or simply to continue to develop and be challenged in an existing role. We need to develop pathways to attract new people into the workforce, for example those returning to work or changing careers. Importantly, we need to attract under-represented groups such as men, older people and people from minority ethnic groups.

3.14 To secure these changes, we need to reform the existing structure of qualifications, increase recognition and understanding of the transferable nature of the skills the workforce possesses, and critically, provide better information and advice for potential recruits and the existing workforce about the opportunities that exist for development and career progression.

Consultation Questions

This section has highlighted some of the current barriers to career pathways in early years and childcare, e.g. qualification structures, cultural differences or misconceptions across the different parts of the workforce, wide differences in pay and conditions between parts of the sector, and a lack of advice about career development opportunities.

The proposals are high level principles that should enable workers to pursue a career pathway while ensuring that employers have the flexibility to deliver services to meet local circumstances.

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