Child Care

As the name suggests, child care workers work with children. They take care and nurture children who are at the pre formal schooling stage. They also take care of older children in programs or facilities that are known as before-and after-school programs. They take care of the children when the actual parents are away or at work. Therefore they have a huge responsibility on them to ensure providing the right guidance to children in order to shape their personalities.

They are classified in 3 categories. Private household workers work with children in the children's home. Family child care providers take care of children in their own homes and then there are those who work in outside care centers and setups that extend preschool services for children in the age group of 3-4 years.

Working Conditions

This career is a challenging one. Working with children can be very demanding, while at the same time extremely rewarding. Each childcare worker is not assigned more than 4 infants, 6 toddlers or 10 preschool children. Family child care workers work out of their own home. Private household workers normally work at the residences of the children they are taking care of. Most of them travel for work from their homes during the day. But some of them also live in their employers homes.

Educational Requirements

Each state has different licensing requirements that keep a check on child day care training. High school diplomas, vocational training and community college degrees are the different qualification that people who want to step into this career need to consider. There is no regulation of the workers who work at the employers homes. They often work without license.

Job Prospects and Salary Expectations

17% of childcare workers get absorbed in child care day services and around 21% work for private homes. The rest of them work in government educational services.

People with qualification should face no problem in finding jobs. The salary starts at as low as less than $5.90/hr and goes up as high as more than $12.34/hr