The premise of this text is to point out the imminent challenges for those who formulate and implement training projects for child education professionals, based on two of the several currents which support them. The first includes the group of factors that make up the present Brazilian context in which projects are undertaken. The second, treats the conception of growth and child development from which comes the challenge to integrate the focus care/education, emphasizing a pedagogy based in child adult interaction, resulting in specific training themes. Knowing of the force with which a caricatured model of schooling has been disseminated in the institutions that care for children from birth to 6 years of age, another challenge put to training projects is to form professionals able to integrate themselves into the educational systems and simultaneously to act in accord with care modalities consistent with the needs and characteristics of growth and development of babies and small children.