NIACC offering six-week program for those interested in working in child care industry

MASON CITY — North Iowa Area Community College is offering a six-week program for people who want to work in the child care industry.

Kelli Gerdes of the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health and the Cerro Gordo Child Care Works coalition says it will help train someone and help them get all their prerequisites completed before they enter the child care workforce.  “Traditionally when you are hired at a child care center, your first couple of weeks are spent in front of the computer completing all the training, going through all the background checks, everything before you’re actually able to step into the classroom. That’s a pretty big burden on the child care center at this point because they are having to pay that employee for a few weeks and not generate any income off the children they are seeing, so by eliminating that burden it’s huge.”

Gerdes says the course also gives people who are thinking about getting into child care the opportunity to see if they really even want to do it. “It also gives an opportunity for people thinking ‘is early childhood an area I want to pursue?’ This will give them a little bit of an insight into if that interests them or ‘oh, you know what, this isn’t going to be a good fit’, and I think it just helps make a better hiring case and a better decision when a child care director goes to hire somebody that they know this student or this individual has sort of vetted themselves against what the conditions they are going to be working in and environments.”

The course will meet on Wednesday afternoons for six weeks starting on October 16th at the YMCA. You need to register for the course by October 10th through NIACC by calling 641-422-4358 or you can click on this link as well