CDA Spotlight - Council for Professional Recognition

Bright Horizons CDA Spotlight

Cherish_Doliveria_edited

Cherish DeOlivera said she's always known she wanted to work with children, but after teaching in a class with special needs children, DeOlivera said she felt she need more targeted instruction.

"I didn't know how to help them," she said. "I started thinking I need to work at earlier stages of development, to see how children interact."

Cherish began looking for the next step in her education and that's she learned about the Bright Horizons e-CDA program.

"I feel like some people go back to school and there's a whole big thing where your entire life has to shift in order to move forward," she said. "But with the E-CDA, it fit right into my life."

DeOlivera said she loved how the CDA brought everything back to the family component to help kids out. "I feel it was a good way to go deeper into my field. It was a lot of things that tied in together," she said. "There's no reason not to do it, if you're looking to go to your next step in early childhood."

Kiera Dalton emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia, looking for a way to impact the lives of children.

After working in the office of a Montessori school in Philadelphia, Dalton said what she wanted more than anything, was to become a teacher.

"You can have the most interesting conversations with 3 & 4 year-olds. They have a new outlook on things that's completely different."

"When I heard about the CDA, I was exited," Dalton said. "I was able to get qualification that American education system would recognize for a low cost and I knew that it would be tailored to the children I was teaching."

Dalton said she values her professional resource file and still refers to it because it's a great reference for classroom activities.

She adds she found the Bright Horizons E-CDA program rewarding because of the deliberate blending of online and group interactions.

"I enjoyed having the resource of other people," she said. "Everyone had different ideas on the group calls; I made connections with other candidates."