Reliable Substitute Workforce Program for Colorado Child Care Providers
Ensuring child care providers never miss a beat with
qualified and vetted substitutes
How Can We Address Early Childhood Education Staffing Challenges?
Staffing impacts almost every aspect of early childhood programs. Program administrators and staff feel the burden of trying to keep up with staffing challenges. Finding coverage for professional development, planned time off, short notice emergencies, maternity leave and even temporary vacancies is difficult. Vetted, qualified, and ready substitutes are hard. Early childhood professionals either don’t take time off or work overtime to fill in the gaps, causing further burnout and turnover.
Building Colorado’s Early Childhood Substitute Workforce
The Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) and Early Learning Ventures (ELV) have partnered to support the early childhood workforce by building and expanding a statewide network of substitutes. In partnership with licensed Substitute Placement Agencies, or SPAs, this effort is focused on increasing substitute availability and accessibility through recruitment and retention strategies and subsidized placement costs.
This program will also simplify the process of connecting child care centers and family child care homes with available, trained and qualified substitutes by deploying Alliance CARE, a recently released substitute placement software, customized specifically for Colorado’s early childhood substitute workforce program.
Why Choose Our Substitute Workforce Program?
Child Care Providers (Centers and Family Child Care Homes)
The benefits of partnering with a SPA include:
- Access to a reliable and ready substitute pool
- An efficient substitute scheduling system
- Affordable, subsidized substitute rates
Substitutes
The benefits of becoming a substitute:
- Desired flexibility
- Training and support
- Competitive compensation
- Mobile app to set availability, interact with placements and time keeping
Substitute Placement Agencies
Providers, Early Childhood Councils, and other organizations who wish to support childcare providers and the workforce can become licensed substitute providers (SPAs).
The benefits of becoming a licensed substitute placement agency and partnering with this program:
- Receive support through the start-up process
- Offer competitive, subsidized provider rates
- Received funding to offset substitute onboarding and training costs
- Access to industry specific placement and record keeping software built by ELV
Introduction to Alliance CARE
Alliance CARE, the newest addition to the ELV software suite, was released in August 2024. It is an all-in-one Substitute Management Software, customized from Alliance CORE and designed to streamline the process of managing substitute placement requests. Alliance CARE offers a user-friendly and reliable solution for all users.
The Alliance CARE substitute management system:
- Streamlines matching available substitutes with provider requests
- Simplifies updating, monitoring and sharing of substitute licensing requirements
- Is an all-in-one platform for communication and record keeping
"The sub-agency has really been helpful in keeping consistent staff in my classrooms so that I can maintain ratios and licensing rules and regs. Prior to having access to the substitute agencies, I was forced to have teachers working eleven hour shifts and also not being able to get time off because I didn’t have the coverage."
Krystal Gastineau,
Owner Cribs 2 Crayons
"I chose to be a substitute over a permanent classroom teacher because I wanted to go to school and I wanted to find a job that was more flexible with my school schedule as well as still being in the childcare industry."
Madison Hubbard,
Substitute, Colorado Child Care Substitutes
"I chose to be a substitute because of the flexibility and schedule. Also being able to travel, to have different interactions with different children and people and cultures and different theories."
Sky McCarter,
Substitute, The Wheelhouse Collaborative
“I think it’s great for centers for many reasons, when they have a vacation that they need to cover, absences, or they’re just still in influx where they can’t quite hire a new person yet, we come in with all of our credentials and you have an instant teacher on staff.“
Lauri McSherry,
Owner Colorado Child Care Substitutes