Dec. 5 -- INDIANAPOLIS -- Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded Ivy Tech Foundation a $21.9 million, three-year grant to support the efforts of Ivy Tech Community College to help strengthen Indiana's early childhood education workforce. This funding will support programs and partnerships that will expand options for and improve access to high-quality postsecondary education and training for current and future early childhood education professionals, according to a news release from Ivy Tech.

According to Ivy Tech, "Indiana's current supply of well-qualified early childhood education professionals is inadequate and hampers the state's capacity to provide high-quality child care options for Hoosier families. Demand for these professionals is expected to continue to grow."

The statement reads that the grant will support Ivy Tech in its efforts to expand its current programs and create new, innovative education and training opportunities. These include, among others, new credentials for Hoosiers who seek to enter and advance in the early childhood education profession.

"As Indiana's workforce engine, Ivy Tech has a responsibility to fuel the state's pipeline of skilled early childhood education talent," said Sue Ellspermann, president, Ivy Tech Community College. "We are grateful for the generous support from Lilly Endowment that is enabling us to remove barriers to education and training for early childhood educators. However, we also recognize more must be done to attract and retain talented, passionate Hoosiers to this important profession."

"Among the most critical challenges facing early childhood education programs in Indiana are the recruiting, retaining and compensating of qualified teachers and caregivers," said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment's vice president for education. "Though Ivy Tech cannot solve these challenges alone, we believe that its plan to expand and enhance training and education offerings has the potential to improve the quality of the early childhood workforce in significant ways, ultimately to the benefit of thousands of young children in Indiana."

With support from the new grant, Ivy Tech aims to increase enrollment in its early childhood education programs by more than 100% by 2027, ultimately graduating 1,950 individuals annually with industry-recognized credentials and degrees. Ivy Tech will:

-- Develop competency assessments that will recognize and reward adult professionals for skills and competencies developed through prior on-the-job experiences and identify areas where additional competencies are needed.

-- Create early childhood education micro-credentials, short, focused and competency-based trainings that align with state workforce needs and traditional degree pathways. Proposed micro-credentials focus on issues important to early childhood education, including Child and Youth Growth and Development; Health, Safety and Nutrition; Family and Community Engagement, among others.

-- Partner with various state agencies, Indiana organizations focused on advancing early childhood education programming, and post-secondary institutions committed to innovative models to launch Federally Registered Adult-Based Early Childhood Apprenticeships. These apprenticeships will provide working adults with high-quality earn-and-learn experiences that lead to wage increases, skill attainment and career advancement opportunities while addressing workforce gaps.

-- Explore implementation of Kids on Campus, a program of the National Head Start Association and the Association of Community College Trustees, to address the early childhood education needs of student parents while providing early childhood education students with experience working in campus-based child care and preschool sites.

-- Develop new transfer pathways that enable students to apply their early childhood education associate degree toward earning a bachelor's degree in elementary education. The goal is to help students to "on-ramp" their K-12 careers by starting in early childhood education.

-- Promote new education and training opportunities and elevate early childhood education as a fulfilling career path through a statewide marketing campaign.

"Early childhood educators are essential to children's learning and development and foundational to the success of Indiana's workforce and economy," said Courtney Roberts, president, Ivy Tech Foundation. "This generous grant from Lilly Endowment will enable Ivy Tech to deliver relevant and responsive postsecondary education and training that will improve the quality of the state's early childhood education sector, support efforts to retain existing professionals and attract more educators to the field."