Strengthening the Child- and Youth-Serving Workforce: Surveying the Landscape, Overcoming Challenges

This special issue addresses a neglected but important topic in our field: strengthening the child- and youth-serving workforce. Investing in this workforce should be a national priority because considerable evidence has shown that investments in early childhood education and development, particularly in low-resource contexts, that are reinforced through skills-based programs in adolescence and adulthood, have beneficial impacts throughout life. Investing in quality child- and youth-serving programs also has the additional benefit of creating a productive and capable future workforce. The editors and authors of the special issue should be commended for producing the first special issue on this topic in our field or in related fields, one that is long overdue. Articles in this issue survey the landscape of an amorphous and complex area of practice and research and describe key challenges for the field. In this commentary, I offer organizing frameworks to characterize the child- and youth-serving workforce, note emerging issues when addressing specific challenges, and identify areas for future research.