Caring for the Caregiver: Implementation of Health and Wellness Development with Early Childhood Education Staff

Early childhood education is a physically and emotionally demanding profession that is characterized by high turnover and burnout rates. Children in early childhood environments need and deserve high quality, consistent care. This dilemma is one the field continues to face. This study presents implementation of health and wellness training and education as a partial answer to this dilemma through increasing educator job satisfaction and retention. Health and wellness, in other fields, has been proven to increase moral and recruitment potential, improve employee health status, contain health care costs and reduce turnover and absenteeism. This study was conducted over a two~ year time span in a suburban non-profit child care program in Minnesota. Health and wellness activities were implemented, for the most part, in regularly scheduled staff meetings and workshops. At the end of the two-year period, staff were surveyed to determine if there was a correlation between health and wellness implementation and staff job satisfaction and likelihood for retention. Both quantitative and qualitative data showed a positive relationship between job satisfaction and health and wellness education with child care staff