The Delaware State University community joins elected officials to officially open the university’s Early Childhood Innovation Center.
Even as the Early Childhood Innovation Center officially opens its physical doors, program graduates are already at work in the First State. Last June, the center recognized more than 200 Child Development Associate credential earners, and another cohort will be honored this weekend.
At Monday’s ribbon cutting, Governor Matt Meyer spoke about the center’s multiple roles and its connection to workforce development.
“It starts by making sure there are facilities like this that not only are training the workforce of tomorrow - and hopefully today - but they're also helping us to research and understand the problem in our own community," Meyer said.
Meyer also sees the center’s potential as a blueprint for other states to follow, a point echoed by DSU President Tony Allen and Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester.
“Delaware State University, as Secretary [of Education Cindy] Marten said to me, is doing something here that can become a national model that can be scaled and grown," Blunt Rochester said.
Congresswoman Sarah McBride saidthe US has a “1950’s care infrastructure for a 2025 workforce.” She connected the opening of the center to larger issues facing the state’s workforce.
“If we invest in both a career pipeline in facilities like this, and in lowering costs facing families, we will fulfill our values as a state of neighbors like this institution does," she said.
Delaware faces a significant crisis when it comes to childcare. A survey last year found tens of thousands of children without access to child care, with the shortages more dire in Kent and Sussex Counties.
