Before submitting your CDA application, you need to complete the following prerequisites:
Within last five years
I. Formal training
You must complete 120 hours of formal early childhood education training with no fewer than 10 training hours in each of the following subject areas:
- Promoting health, safety, and nutrition in home environments.
- Enhancing parents' skill to advance children's physical and intellectual development.
- Promoting parents' use of positive ways to support children's social and emotional development.
- Understanding family systems and development.
- Managing an effective home visitor program operation.
- Maintaining a commitment to professionalism.
- Working across the child welfare continuum.
- Understandin principles of child development and learning.
While formal education hours can be for credit or noncredit, they must be earned through an agency or organization with expertise in early childhood teacher preparation. The agency or organization must provide verification of your education in the form of an official transcript, certificate, or letter. You need to submit these documents with your application.
II. 480 hours of professional experience – this experience needs to be in working with families in a home visitor program or in an adult education program such as teaching parenting skills.
Within last six months
III. Observation in homes
Following the guidelines in your Application Packet, you need to identify an early childhood professional (Advisor) and a Parent / Community Representative who will observe you while you work with parents and children. They will make recommendations on the Advisor Report and the Parent / Community Representative regarding your competence in each CDA Functional Area. Please refer to your Application Packet for detailed description of the procedures for arranging and conducting the observations.
IV. The Professional Resource File
You are required to put together a collection of reference materials related to your work. Please follow the detailed instructions in your Application Packet to prepare your Professional Resource File.
V. Parent Opinion Questionnaires
You will distribute questionnaires among families that you visit. The Application Packet includes these questionnaires. After you collect them, please give the sealed questionnaires to the Parent/Community Representative. As a spokesperson for the parents and community, your Parent / Community Representative will present the questionnaires to the Local Assessment Team.
Keep your Professional Resource File until the Local Assessment Team meets with you to discuss your performance and gather the final evidence of your skills and knowledge.
If you have not done so already, make sure to purchase an Application Packet which includes details of all prerequisites, along with key documents required to complete your application.
CDA materials are available for purchase through the Council and are listed under Materials You Will Need to the left. We encourage you to use the Council’s secure online bookstore to make the purchase. For telephone, fax, or mail order instructions, please view and print the Order Form.
Are you ready to begin?
You are ready to begin if the Application Packet is in your hands and all prerequisites are completed. Proceed to STEP 3.
TIPS & TOOL
- Looking for a training program? Visit our National Directory of Early Childhood Educator Preparation Institutions.
Glossary
- Observation – documentation of CDA Candidate’s actual hands-on work with families
- Competency – skill or the ability to do something
- Advisor – a professional in early childhood education who observes the CDA Candidate at work
- Council Representative – a professional in early childhood education, trained and endorsed by the Council to conduct final Candidate assessment
- Parent / Community Representative – a person who represents the interests of parents and the community and participates in the assessment of the CDA Candidate
- Local Assessment Team (LAT)– A team of four individuals - the Candidate, an Advisor, a Parent/Community Representative, and a Council Representative who conduct the assessment of a CDA Candidate