Young children with disabilities deserve a strong early intervention and early childhood special education workforce

By Nicole Hsu, 2024

A quick Google search of the workforce crisis in early care and education (ECE) results in hundreds of news articles. There are daily headlines about families struggling to find care for their children and programs closing down due to staffing shortages.

At the same time, a separate, but related crisis receiving much less news coverage is the shortage of early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) service providers. Nationally, we are serving far fewer children than are eligible.

There are long waitlists for referrals and evaluations, which are steps that need to happen before children begin to receive services (see graphic below for an overview of this process)….