Needed Qualifications and Training for Childcare Center Caregivers

	Topics Covered:
	Requirements to Become Any Type of Employee at a Childcare Center Requirements for Caregivers at a Childcare Facility Requirements for Childcare Directors Training Directors, Caregivers, and Staff Track Career Pathway Progression Alignment with Core Competencies

Requirements to Become Any Type of Employee at a Childcare Center

All employees at childcare centers, including caregivers and non-caregivers, need to submit the following with their application:

• Pass a background check
• Show proof of a negative tuberculosis (TB) test
• Complete a notarized Affidavit for Applicants for Employment (Form 2985)

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Requirements for Caregivers at a Childcare Facility

Caregivers must follow the mandated application procedures other workers at childcare centers follow. They also have extra qualifications to become early childcare teachers. They must meet the following basic requirements:

• Be at least 18 years old
  • In some cases, those 16 or 17 can become caregivers if they:
    • Have a high school diploma or its equivalent.
    • Never stay alone with children in a room.
    • Have a qualified caregiver supervising them.
    • Complete a childcare-related career program approved by the Texas Education Agency, another educational agency, or a homeschool program that includes at least 24 hours of pre-training.
  • Have a high school diploma or equivalent
    • Some caregivers may not yet completed high school may still become a caregiver that counts toward the child-to-teacher ratio if:
      • They are 16, 17, or 18 years old.
      • Are in high school and working toward completing it or an equivalent.
      • Never stay alone with any children in the facility.
      • Have an over-18 caregiver to supervise them.
      • Are enrolled in a childcare career program approved by a homeschooling entity, educational agency, or the TEA. For homeschooled students, they must complete 24 hours of pre-service training before working with children.

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Requirements for Childcare Directors

Directors at childcare centers have more education and experience requirements than anyone else at a facility.

• Must be at least 21 years old
• Have a high school diploma or equivalent
• Meet the minimum education and experience requirements as shown below:

For childcare centers with 12 or fewer children, the director must meet one of the following combinations of education and experience:

Education		Experience
Bachelor's degree with 12 credit hours child development and 3 credit hours management Associate of applied science degree in child development or a closely related field with 6 hours in child development and 3 hours in management 60 college hours with 6 in child development and 3 in management Child Development Associate or Certified Childcare Professional credential with 3 college hours management		At least one year of experience in a licensed childcare center, registered home-based facility, or licensed home-based childcare facility

 

Education		Experience
Childcare administrator certificate from a community college with 15 hours child development and 3 hours management		At least two years of experience in a licensed childcare center, registered home-based facility, or licensed home-based childcare facility
Daycare administrator's credential from a Licensing Board approved program

 

Education		Experience
72 hours child development training and 30 hours in management		At least three years of experience in a licensed childcare center, registered home-based facility, or licensed home-based childcare facility

Directors of childcare centers with 13 or more children must have one of the following combinations of education and experience:

Education		Experience
Bachelor's degree with 12 credit hours child development and 3 credit hours management		At least one year of experience in a licensed childcare center

 

Education		Experience
Associate of applied science degree in child development or a closely related field with 6 hours in child development and 6 hours in management 60 college hours with 9 in child development and 6 in management Childcare administrator certificate from a community college including 15 credit hours in child development and 3 credit hours in management Daycare administrator's credential from a Licensing Board-approved program Child Development Associate or Certified Childcare Professional credential with 6 college hours management		At least two years of experience in a licensed childcare center

 

Education		Experience
9 college credit hours of child development and 9 college credit hours of management		At least three years of experience in a licensed childcare center

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Training Directors, Caregivers, and Staff

All employees, whether they deal directly with children or not, must meet minimum annual training requirements.

Orientation for All Employees

First, all employees, including non-caregivers, must have an orientation for the center within seven days of hiring. This orientation must include:

• Information on the minimum standards for your center
• How your center handles children, including policies on release, guidance, and discipline
• Daycare workers are mandatory reporters of any suspected child abuse or neglect. You must include in employee training what your center does to prevent, recognize, and report mistreatment, abuse, or neglect of children
  • Report all suspected cases of abuse to the Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS). For emergencies, call 911, then the DFPS hotline at 1-800-252-5400. For non-emergency reporting, use the website: https://www.txabusehotline.org.
  • Information should include how to recognize signs that a child is at risk of experiencing abuse or neglect
  • Consider having employees sign up for training on mandatory reporting. DFPS offers a one-hour Guide to Reporting Abuse to CPS class through its learning hub to learn more about mandatory reporting
  • Use DFPS’s webpage When and How to Report Child Abuse as another resource for this part of the training
  • The Texas Attorney General’s office offers a brochure Your Legal Obligation with information about mandatory reporting of abuse.
• How your center handles emergencies, including:
  • Locations of first aid kits and fire extinguishers
  • How to prevent and respond to food allergy emergencies
  • How to handle child illnesses or injuries
  • What to do in case of natural disasters, fires, and presence of volatile or dangerous people in your center
  • Recognizing and responding to hazards on or around the property, such as bodily fluids, hazardous chemicals, electrical hazards, and traffic
• Policies regarding giving medicine to children
• Information on safely transporting children under nine

The above orientation gives employees specific information about your center and policies. While all employees must go through orientation, caregivers and directors must go through training related to childcare.

Training for Childcare Center Caregivers

Anyone who will count toward the child-caregiver ratio must go through regular training both upon hiring and annually. Training mandated for caregivers includes:

• Preservice training: This training totals 24 clock hours of training with 8 hours completed before caregivers become part of the child-caregiver ratio. The remaining 16 hours of this preservice training must occur within the first 90 days of employment. Some employees are exempt from this training if they have at least 2 years of experience at a regulated childcare center or a record of 24 hours of preservice training at a regulated childcare center. This training needs to include the following topics:
  • Developmental stages of children and age-appropriate activities for each
  • Positive interactions, discipline, and guidance of children
  • Fostering a healthy self-esteem in children
  • How to supervise and keep children safe
  • Information on how to prevent and control infectious disease spread and immunizations
  • Only for caregivers of children 24 months and younger, one hour of this pre-service training must include:
    • Early child brain development
    • Preventing and recognizing shaken baby syndrome
    • Preventing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and using safe sleep practices
      • Brochure: “A Childcare Provider’s Guide to Safe Sleep” from the American Academy of Pediatrics
    • Pediatric first aid with rescue breathing: Both caregivers and directors need this training within 90 days of hiring and before being unsupervised with children. Training for pediatric first aid and rescue breathing needs repeating as necessary to keep the certification current.
    • Pediatric CPR: Caregivers and directors need pediatric CPR training within 90 days of hiring. They must repeat training when needed to keep this training current.
    • Annual training: Within 12 months of hiring, all caregivers must have 24 clock hours of training. They must repeat the 24 hours of training every year. Topics and instructional requirements for the 24 hours of annual caregiver training are online.
    • Transportation of children training: All directors and any employees involved in transporting children younger than nine need this training before transporting children. This training needs to be repeated once a year.

Training for Directors

Directors have many training requirements that overlap with those of caregivers. However, in many instances, directors need extra training because they hold responsibility for the children under care of the center. Director training includes:

• 30 clock hours of annual training: All directors need to complete 30 hours of training within the first 12 months of employment and each year thereafter. These 30 clock hours of training must include the topics outlined by the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).
• Pediatric first aid with rescue breathing: All directors and caregivers need this training within the first 90 days of employment and as needed to maintain a current certification
• Pediatric CPR: All directors and caregivers need this training in the first 90 days of employment and must remain current in this certification
• Transportation of children: All directors and anyone involved with transporting children younger than nine need transportation training before transporting children to or from the center and each year thereafter.

Transportation Training

Before driving a vehicle or riding in one with children who have developmental ages of nine or lower, employees and the center director must complete two hours of transportation safety training.

This training cannot count toward any other hours of professional training. Therefore, for directors of centers that transport children, the directors must have 30 hours of annual training plus two hours of transportation safety training.

As with other types of professional training, those who must have transportation safety training must repeat the training once a year.

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Track Career Pathway Progression

Find My Career Pathway Tool

The training and education hours you and your workers accrue should contribute to a goal. In TECPDS, the Workforce Registry includes access to the Early Childhood Education Professional Career Pathways. After you’ve uploaded your education and training information into the system, you can view where you stand on the career pathway of your choice in the childcare industry.

With the Find My Career Pathway Tool, there are four main pathways:

• Administrator (New for 2024): The administrator pathway ensures that participants are compliant with state licensing requirements to be administrative personnel, center directors, or administrative leaders of multiple childcare sites.
• Coach: The coach path sets you up to become a mentor or for other early childhood education teachers, directors, and assistants. Coaches on this path can move forward as they gain more experience, competencies, and education. Coaches are part of a group TECPDS classifies as early childhood education specialists.
• Practitioner: This path sets you up for having the education and experience requirements to be a classroom teacher, paraprofessional, or assistant teacher directly caring for children between 0 and 8.
• Trainer: Trainers of other early childcare professionals may follow the trainer pathway. This path helps them to find ways to further their advancement in their expertise area. TECPDS classifies trainers as early childhood education specialists.

Since TECPDS tracks education and experience you upload into the system, it can verify your position on your chosen pathway. The system will display your verified path location and your self-reported career path place. This information helps you to see how far you’ve come along and what you need to do to achieve your career goals in early childhood education.

This tool is essential for keeping you on track toward meeting your education goals.

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Alignment with Core Competencies

Another way of tracking whether you are meeting the requirements for your position of caregiver or director is checking with the Texas Core Competencies for Early Childhood Practitioners and Administrators.

Use the core competencies as a checklist for yourself or your employees to identify areas of proficiency and things that need improvement. Once you’ve spotted areas that need improvement, you can more effectively choose professional development or helping your employees to find the right PD.

Combine the core competencies reference with the self-assessment for administrators form from TECPDS or the self-assessment for practitioners form to make the process of checking your proficiencies easier.

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