Early childhood educators and staff nurture and teach children under the age of 5. At its best, this type of early care sets kids up for long-term success.

But educators who are experiencing poor mental health are less able to cultivate positive relationships with the children in their care, which negatively affects the children’s development.

“We work in a field that has a high demand for kids to be safe and enjoy learning,” one educator told us. “We have … little people that depend on us, parents depend on us, and we need to make sure that we are there for the kids when they need us.”

Our research team – led by a clinical associate professor and a research assistant professor in public health – set out to learn how child care workers were coping with all of this responsibility.

What we learned was concerning and needs to be understood by parents and policymakers alike.

Our peer-reviewed study examined the mental health of 332 early child care educators and other staff at 42 Head Start centers in the Denver metropolitan area and southeast Colorado.

We found that roughly 25% of early child care staff in Colorado self-reported discrimination and condescending or demeaning treatment from a colleague in the past year, with 15% experiencing more than one kind.

We measured discrimination tied to age, race, ethnicity and gender. We also measured types of demeaning treatment, which included bullying, harassment and condescending behavior. And we looked at physical violence.

Higher levels of workplace mistreatment were related to greater numbers of poor mental health days. The child care staff........

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