Building Bright Futures is a pilot initiative designed to support and scale pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships in early childhood education throughout North Carolina. BBF offers technical assistance, financial support, and resources to pre-apprentices and apprentices, child care centers, school districts, community colleges, and other partners that are part of a registered apprenticeship program through ApprenticeshipNC.
Our mission is to ensure our educators are positioned for academic and career success—without risk of financial burden. Participants in this initiative can receive year-round financial support for wages, training, and professional development, and access to a network of industry professionals and enrichment opportunities to advance knowledge in the field.
This pilot program aims to “fill in the gaps” where other financial resources can’t, offer value-added professional development and community of practice opportunities, create a hub for early childhood apprenticeship resources, and gather best practices and lessons learned from participants in support of a statewide playbook.
The Building Bright Futures program runs from January 3, 2023 to December 31, 2024.
Morgan Ford is the Program Director for BBF, managing the development, recruiting, marketing, and implementation of the initiative in NC. Since graduating from the University of Virginia with a BA in English, she has had over 25 years of experience working with and managing community outreach and communications projects for public schools, nonprofits, and local, state, and federal government. As a parent, sometimes substitute teacher, and a long-time volunteer in preschools and the public schools, Morgan has a passion for supporting students and educators. When she’s not working, you can find her organizing anything she can get her hands on, eating chocolate, and spending time with her (not so little anymore) kids.
Megan serves as Program Manager for BBF, supporting the marketing efforts and daily operations of piloting the initiative across the state. Megan began her career in public relations and marketing and later received a Master’s in Teaching (K-6) from NC State University. She taught in the Wake County Public School System before becoming a stay-at-home mom to her two daughters. More recently, Megan was an assistant teacher at a preschool, getting 4- and 5-year-olds ready for kindergarten! In her spare time, Megan enjoys quality time with her family and friends, playing tennis, reading the latest in popular fiction, and is most happy whenever she is near the water.
Lindley Hille serves as the Data Manager for Building Bright Futures, where she plays a role in supporting the day-to-day financial and data operations. Lindley grew up in NC and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. She lived for a short time in New York City where she worked for the Calhoun School in Development. After moving back to NC, Lindley attended pharmacy school and worked in retail, independent, and hospital pharmacies. She continued to volunteer in her children’s classrooms as well as tutor one-on-one before school to help bring students up to grade level in math. Lindley loves spending time at the beach, reading a good book, playing in the pool with family, cooking something yummy in the kitchen, and walking with friends.
Christina Hutchinson serves as a Data Manager, assisting in the day-to-day financial and data operations. She has a strong background in marketing and organization and loves all things technical. Christina is passionate about North Carolina history and serves locally on the board of a historic home. When she is not busy volunteering, you will find Christina at home or on the road, enjoying photography, antiquing, or hanging out with her husband, son, and two cats.
With a passion for early childhood education, public education, and building services for vulnerable populations, Marsha supports non-profit and for-profit organizations, counties, and states in addressing their current and future needs. Marsha recently retired as President of Child Care Services Association (CCSA) and previously served as Senior Advisor at the DHHS Administration for Children (ACF), Office of Early Childhood Development, where she coordinated early childhood workforce efforts and homelessness issues. She was involved with early childhood workforce initiatives in the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, served as Executive Director of the Early Care & Learning Council in New York, and was Executive Director of Durham’s Partnership for Children, a Smart Start initiative.
Building Bright Futures’ mission is to ensure those interested in a career in early childhood education are positioned for academic and career success - free of financial burden. Participants can receive year-round financial support for wages, training, and professional development, and access to a network of industry professionals and enrichment opportunities to advance knowledge in the field.
Our initiative supports early childhood education pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs, up to the level of an Associate’s Degree. We do not cover tuition, but this pathway has incredible resources for that we can help you with!
BBF customizes its support to each program, recognizing that each has its own combination of resources, needs, and goals. These are just a few examples of how we can help. Find out how you could benefit from participating in this pilot initiative!
Congratulations, you are about to become part of a trailblazing initiative in NC to support and train our future early childhood educators!
If you are interested in learning more about early childhood apprenticeships and Building Bright Futures (BBF), or are ready to sign up with BBF, follow the steps below to get started. Keep in mind that some of these steps can happen simultaneously. We are here to guide you through the process, including just to answer questions if you are not sure if apprenticeship is for you. Reach out!
Apprenticeships combine paid on-the-job training with classroom instruction to prepare workers for a highly skilled career. Apprentices are at least 16 years old, and can be an incumbent worker, a new hire, or a high school student. Youth apprentices are typically high school students or 16-24 years old. Registered apprenticeships are those approved by ApprenticeshipNC, North Carolina’s apprenticeship agency. Read more about apprenticeships and find a community college in your area by visiting ApprenticeshipNC.
Easy! Simply contact Morgan Ford, Program Director, morgan.ford@nc.gov or Megan Johnson, Program Manager, megan.johnson@nc.gov to let us know you are interested or want to sign up. We will connect you with an ApprenticeshipNC Consultant to begin the apprenticeship registration process.
To be eligible for BBF support, we require three things:
For more information on how to sign up with BBF and an apprenticeship program, visit Get Started.
There is no cost for being a part of BBF! Building Bright Futures is an initiative designed to provide resources and financial support, thereby eliminating prohibitive costs to participants.
A Sponsor is the organization responsible for overseeing the apprenticeship agreement. Sometimes, the Sponsor and the Employer are the same. For a full list of apprenticeship-related terms, see the BBF Glossary of Terms.
Yes! Building Bright Futures funding can be used along with other funding sources. BBF funding fills in any financial gaps that may not be covered by other funding sources. Visit our Funding Resources page for more information.
Congratulations! Be sure to register your apprentices with your ApprenticeshipNC consultant. Once that is complete, you can begin submitting estimates or requests for wage and expense reimbursements to BBF. To access these forms, log-in to our Participants page to find the financial request forms. There are instructions with examples on how to fill them out. For assistance on financial requests or reimbursements, you may contact our Data Managers: Lindley Hille at lindley.hille@nc.gov or Christina Hutchinson at christina.hutchinson@nc.gov.
Early childhood educators not only support the local workforce, but are also invaluable to a child’s first years of life. Children, parents, caregivers, and communities rely on access to quality early child care and high-quality educators to thrive.
Apprenticeships in early childhood education offer a supportive path for receiving a quality education while gaining paid, hands-on experience in an early child care setting. For child care centers, apprenticeships serve as a valuable recruiting and retention tool with access to dedicated workers who are simultaneously gaining the skills and education necessary for career success.
Below is a general overview of how ECE pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships work. Keep in mind that each program is unique, and some of the information below may not apply in all instances. For more information, visit ApprenticeshipNC.
Pre-Apprentices and Apprentices can include anyone who is at least the age of 16. Many employers look first at their current employees. Who is already working and taking classes? Who is interested in pursuing further education, but hasn't had the resources to do it? Employers can also hire Apprentices from outside their organization.
Apprentices can be of any age and any level of professional or educational experience. There is an extry and exit point on the ECE Apprenticeship Pathway for everyone! ApprenticeshipNC provides prior credit for some requirements. This allows a range of employees or new hires to enter the same program, but at the level of experience that applies best to them.
The Early Childhood Educator apprenticeship model is successful because of the key elements listed below. Each of these items, however, can be customized to your own program.
Pre-Apprenticeship is an optional pre-cursor to the apprenticeship, designed to prepare the student for the apprenticeship, or to allow them to explore it as a potential career path. It usually applies to high schoolers, but can be created for any age student. It serves as the perfect recruiting and training tool for Employers, while pre-apprentices have the chance to test out a career they are interested in.
BONUS! High schoolers who complete a pre-apprenticeship and register as an apprentice within 120 days of graduation are eligible to receive a tuition waiver at any of the 58 NC community colleges. What an amazing opportunity to earn a free Associate's Degree in early childhood education!
This image illustrates the main phases of a student's apprenticeship journey, with multiple entry and exit points. You can see that high schoolers have two options for taking an introductory class. Most people will enter at the Apprenticeship level, and the completion of the apprenticeship leads to many options for next steps!
The field of early childhood education holds opportunities for a number of honorable, impactful, and rewarding careers. Degrees and certificates in early childhood can open many doors to a variety of workplace options.
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There are a number of workplace options available to those involved in early childhood education. Each of the following environments depends on childhood development professionals at all levels of expertise. Work environments that are suitable for early childhood educators include:
Helpful Links
To explore additional career options for early childhood educators, visit the Child Care Services Association’s Career Directory.
NCcareers.org aims to be North Carolina’s central online resource for students, parents, educators, job seekers and career counselors looking for high quality job and career information.
Building Bright Futures is an initiative developed by the North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE), a non-partisan, business-led, education and workforce non-profit (501-c3) that operates out of the Office of the Governor. Since 1983, NCBCE has provided a critical link between North Carolina business leaders and the state’s education decision-makers, helping to create connections between the education curriculum and the overall work readiness of people across the state.
NCBCE received a grant from NC’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) - Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) to pilot the Building Bright Futures initiative.
Find out more about NCBCE here.
Read NCBCE's 2023 Impact Report - 40th Anniversary Edition.
To learn more about other great work-based learning NCBCE initiatives, see below.
LiNC-IT (Linking North Carolina with Innovative Talent) addresses the high unemployment rate (86%) of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and employers’ need for educated, loyal, and detail-oriented workers. LiNC-IT provides job coaching for interns and their managers to support success. To date, this program has had 48 interns working with 19 employers, with 97% of interns getting full-time employment.
NCBCE is leading North Carolina’s participation in the National Governors Association Work-Based Learning Policy Academy as a Leader State. Through this multi-system initiative, NC Career Launch was developed. Career Launch programs provide students with work-based learning and education or credential attainment to prepare them for the workforce. NCBCE works with partners to expand these programs and launch innovative pilots that provide opportunities for students and a pipeline of future team members for employers.
The Navigator, developed in partnership with Fidelity Investments, is an online marketplace that brings together members of the employer, educator, and workforce development communities. Whether it is through activities that enable students and job seekers to learn about work (e.g., guest speakers), learn through work (e.g., career competitions), or learn for work (e.g., apprenticeships), this platform makes “stepping in” to work-based learning easy, consistent, and scalable.
STEPs4GROWTH is a comprehensive clean energy workforce development project funded by a grant from the US Department of Commerce. It is led by NC A&T State University with support from NCBCE and other partners. STEPs4GROWTH works with employers to train students and adults to fill well-paying jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean vehicles, and grid & resiliency.
The NC Student Connect Tech Team is a comprehensive framework for North Carolina schools and districts to access resources for starting, implementing, and scaling a student technology support desk. NCBCE also worked with leaders of NC tech companies to develop a list of industry-developed credentials that students and teachers can access. Since its launch in 2020, twenty-one pilot districts have developed programs to support Tech Team programs which give students valuable work-based learning and credential attainment.
The Ready, Set, App! Competition is a statewide initiative that challenges NC high school students to create a mobile app that addresses a problem in their school or community. Ready, Set, App! focuses on three primary pillars: mobile app development, professional and personal development, and interpersonal and soft skills development. The competition is sponsored by Lenovo.
Professional development is critical to supporting educators. The Governor’s Educator Discovery Award recognizes exemplary and innovative teachers and provides them with monetary stipends to cover the costs associated with the selected professional development opportunities. Three teachers receive the award each quarter.
Since 2017, NCBCE has been leading the state’s efforts to expand, pilot, and promote work-based learning and to provide technical assistance to employers and local education and workforce partners. The Experience More site provides toolkits, information, examples, and strategies to support work-based learning.
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, NCBCE convened representatives from business, education, government, and non-profits to develop short-term connectivity strategies for remote learning. Through this work, NCBCE raised grant funding to support remote learning in rural districts and assisted in the development of NC Student Connect, which has connected over 83,000 students with high-speed internet. The work continues to address the student digital divide in NC.
Students@Workâ , a career awareness program held by Gubernatorial Proclamation, introduces NC middle school students to businesses and careers. Students are hosted by employers (on-site or virtually) and learn about career pathways in real-world business environments. Career Awareness is a critical first step in adding relevancy to academics and positioning students to successfully navigate career pathways. Many students are unaware of the multitude of careers available within their state and Students@Work helps bridge this gap.
Teachers@Work is a teacher-externship model designed in partnership by NCBCE and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The program provides educators from across the state with unique, hands-on learning experiences inside local businesses, non-profit organizations, and state entities. Through these experiences, educators gain a more robust understanding of the technical skills, behaviors, and mindsets students need to be successful in today’s professional environments.