National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15th) serves as a time to recognize the achievements and contributions of Hispanic American champions who have inspired others to achieve success. This National Hispanic Heritage Month, The Women’s Foundation is pleased to spotlight Identity, Inc., one of our Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative (ECEFC) grantee partners, who is ensuring a just and equitable environment for Latinx youth and their families.
Through its Workforce Experience Program in Early Childhood Education (WEX-ECE), The Women’s Foundation is pleased to provide funding to help Identity offer Latinx residents of Montgomery County post-secondary early education training in Spanish through a 90-hour certification. Since the start of this program, Identity has successfully increased the program’s participation from 10 to 30 students.
This year, the program received 9 participants in the first cohort, and of these participants, 7 clients have completed the first 45-hour session, and a total of 6 clients have completed the full 90-hour training program. Out of 6 graduates, 3 students have successfully completed their internships, and 3 are starting their internship this month.
Identity is also proud to announce that each student who has completed their internship has secured employment with some of them being employed at the same childcare location where they participated in on-the-job experience. Additionally, 1 student is registered for the preparation class to receive a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, and is also interested in pursuing a degree in Early Childhood Education.
At The Women’s Foundation we are committed to furthering our goal to ensure gender, race, culture, religion, class, and ability equity across early education systems. Today, and every day, we are proud to stand behind Identity as they work to serve the Lantinx community and help us achieve our goal.
