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The Child Development Associate Credential

The Child Development Associate (CDA) is a national early-childhood credential administered in the United States by the Council for Professional Recognition. It is the most widely recognised entry credential in child care, it is reachable in months rather than years, and it costs a fraction of a degree. It is also, on the record, not a degree — a distinction worth getting right before building a plan on it.

What it actually is

The CDA is a credential, issued against a national assessment, not an academic award. A college certificate, an associate degree and a bachelor's degree are issued by colleges and universities; the CDA is issued by the Council. Confusion arises because the word "Associate" sits in the title and because the credential frequently feeds a degree — many community colleges build CDA coursework into their own early-childhood certificates and articulate those credits into an associate programme. Whether a particular CDA course carries college credit depends entirely on the institution, so the question to ask an admissions office is specific: does this course articulate, and for how many credits?

What it does carry is recognition. Many employers, many state licensing schemes and the federal Head Start programme treat the CDA as a qualifying credential for a lead-teacher or assistant role, and some employers who want "a credential, any credential" will accept it on that basis.

The four settings

The credential is awarded for a specific setting, and the choice matters because the required experience must be in that setting:

• Preschool — centre-based, ages three to five.
• Infant/Toddler — centre-based, birth to three.
• Family Child Care — care delivered in the provider's own home.
• Home Visitor — working with families in their homes.

Requirements

• 120 hours of formal training in the Council's eight subject areas, from an authorised early-childhood training organisation, college or university.
• About 480 hours of experience working with young children in the chosen setting, within the three years before application.
• A professional portfolio assembled to the Council's specification.
• Family questionnaires distributed to the parents of children in your care.
• A verification visit, which includes an observation of you working with children.
• The CDA exam, taken at a Pearson VUE testing centre.
• Eligibility requires a high school diploma or GED, or enrolment as a junior or senior in a high-school career-and-technical early-childhood programme.

The credential is valid for three years and must then be renewed.

Cost, and why training providers differ so much

The Council charges an application fee; the 120 hours of training is a separate purchase, and that is where prices diverge enormously. A community college course and an online subscription provider can both satisfy the 120-hour requirement while differing by an order of magnitude in price. Subscription providers in this market — ChildCareEd among them — sell annual access covering the 120 hours plus state-specific courses for roughly the price of a single college credit hour.

The question to ask any provider is not what it costs but who accredits it. A provider whose continuing-education programme is accredited against the ANSI/IACET standard is attesting to an externally audited process; one that is not is attesting to its own opinion of itself. See Accreditation Bodies IACET ANSI and CHEA.

What to pair it with

The CDA on its own qualifies you for child-care work. Paired with a state director's or operator's certificate it qualifies you to run or administer a facility — which is the difference between an hourly job and a business. See Starting a Home Childcare in Texas. Paired with food-handler certification, paediatric first aid and CPR, it makes you employable as a nanny, a private-home carer or a tutor without any further schooling. See Stacking Credentials and the Bilateral Career Path.

Current providers and prices are listed at credentials.soapbox.community.

See also: Making Money Certificate Pathways · Starting a Home Childcare in Texas · Child Development Theory Piaget Vygotsky and Multiple Intelligences · Accreditation Bodies IACET ANSI and CHEA

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