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Growing Skills and Advancing Your Career
You want to provide the best possible care and learning environments for children, and you’re eager to stay up to date on the latest research, techniques, and best practices. Doing so helps you feel more competent and fulfilled in your chosen career and improves outcomes for children and families.
There are three interrelated parts of your early childhood professional development system, including the Core Competencies, the Career Pathway for Kansas Early Childhood Care and Education Professionals, and Your Cape Portal, a new platform to centralize all your learning opportunities and credentials.
A career pathway guides you through educational and advancement opportunities, whether through work experience, higher education, credentialing programs, mentoring, or peer learning experiences. This resource helps you as an early childhood professional better understand how to navigate your own professional growth and where to focus efforts depending on your career goals.
The current Career Pathway provides guidance for child care professionals and those interested in pursuing a career in child care. Future iterations will include adding guidance for home visitors and other early childhood professionals.
- Learn about the Career Pathway
- Try the Career Pathway Tool
- Get Help with the Career Pathway Tool or Request Training
- Learn about career pathways for high school students
- Create Your IPDP – Individualized Professional Development Plan
Core competencies and standards are the knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors that you should know, and be able to do in a respectful and competent manner, while working with young children and families. In Kansas, there are five formal resources to help strengthen your understanding of how to best serve young children and their families.
Your career and professional empowerment portal
Support for wherever you are on your journey as an early childhood professional.
Cape was designed especially for the Kansas early childhood workforce. The online portal is a trusted source where you can build a personalized profile, document experience, and securely store information that highlights your accomplishments. Cape simplifies access to professional development opportunities and planning tools that fit your learning style and career goals. You can customize searches for training and events, make selections, and track your progress all in one place.
Cape saves you time so you can focus on what truly matters – providing quality care and support for children and families. Together, let’s shape the future of early childhood.
Get started with these helpful videos
Explore opportunities to grow your skills, advance your career, and play a pivotal role in optimizing the early childhood ecosystem by participating in leadership and advocacy groups:
Spotlight
Southwest Region Care & Wellness Conference
Join us in Garden City on May 6th for a free conference for: families with young children, early childhood care providers, and mental health professionals.
Northwest Region Care & Wellness Conference
Join us in Hays on May 8th for a free conference for: families with young children, early childhood care providers, and mental health professionals.
1-800-Children
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