The family child care CDA, awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, is earned through a three-step process: prepare with 120 hours of professional education across eight subject areas, 480 hours of experience in a home-based program serving children from birth through age 5, and a Professional Portfolio; apply online; then demonstrate competence on the 65-question CDA Exam and, where required, a Verification Visit. This guide walks each step. PassProfessor’s companion program is in the works.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
The companion program is in the works, built on the Council’s Competency Standards for the family child care setting. Join the notify list and you will be emailed when enrollment opens. Until then, this guide gives preparation a structure worth starting now, because the family child care CDA examines something no center credential can: a complete early learning program designed, staffed, managed, and taught by one person, in a home, for a mixed-age group spanning the whole of early childhood. Candidates who prepare as if they were center teachers with a smaller room miss the credential’s centre of gravity — the operation itself is evidence here, and the guide treats it that way throughout.
Hold the assessment’s shape from the first page. The Council decides this credential on multiple sources of evidence: verified education, documented experience in the setting, a Professional Portfolio arguing competence in the candidate’s own words, an examination of professional judgement, and — where the Council requires one — a Verification Visit in the candidate’s own home in which a specialist observes the program running. The exam is one component. Its result, under the Council’s current decision process, can change what else is required, but no exam result on its own awards the credential, and the sections below follow the Council’s order of business.
Which credential is this?
The Child Development Associate credential in the family child care setting, in the CDA National Credentialing Program of the Council for Professional Recognition. The Council assesses candidates using multiple sources of evidence, including an exam, observation, and a professional portfolio with resources and competency statements prepared by the candidate. The setting definition does the distinguishing work. A family child care setting is a home-based early learning program where the candidate can be observed working with at least two children 5 years old or younger who are not related to the candidate by blood or marriage. The setting must meet at least the minimum level of applicable state and/or local regulations; family child care settings are also eligible in localities where there is no regulation of family child care. Note what the definition does not require: no minimum total enrollment beyond the observed children, no second caregiver, no dedicated facility. Note also what it does require — children unrelated to the candidate, because care of one’s own relatives is not the professional practice being assessed. A provider whose daily work is in a center belongs to a center setting even if the center is small; a home visitor belongs to the home visitor setting even though both work in homes — the family child care candidate educates children in the provider’s own home, and the home visitor supports parents in the families’ homes. Two further clarifications. This CDA is the Council’s Child Development Associate; it is not DANB’s Certified Dental Assistant, a dental credential from a different body that shares only the abbreviation. And the CDA is a credential, not a course: the 120 hours of professional education are one eligibility input, and a college child development course — PassProfessor’s decided college course of that name included, as a product type — is a different thing from this assessment program.
The credential at a glance
| Fact of record | Detail |
|---|---|
| Credential and body | Child Development Associate (CDA) — Family Child Care; Council for Professional Recognition, CDA National Credentialing Program |
| Setting test | Home-based early learning program; observed with at least two children aged 5 or younger, not related to the candidate by blood or marriage; meets at least the minimum of applicable state/local regulations, or located where family child care is unregulated |
| Education | High school diploma or GED, or junior/senior enrollment in a high school early childhood career and technical program; plus 120 clock hours of formal training covering ages birth to 5, at least 10 hours in each of the eight subject areas, any time before applying |
| Experience | 480 hours of professional work experience in a family child care setting with children ages birth to 5, within the 3 years before applying; paid or volunteer |
| Portfolio | Within the 6 months before applying, per the blue Family Child Care edition of the Competency Standards book: education documentation, Family Questionnaires, ten-resource Resource Collection, six Reflective Statements of Competence, Professional Philosophy Statement |
| Application | Select a PD Specialist in YourCouncil, then apply online through YourCouncil; Council application fee $525 (third-party; non-refundable, non-transferable) |
| Exam | 65 multiple-choice questions at a Pearson VUE test center, scheduled after application approval on the first Ready to Schedule notice |
| Visit | Verification Visit by the PD Specialist in the candidate’s home where the Council requires one, scheduled on the second Ready to Schedule notice after the exam: portfolio review, observation of the candidate with the children, reflective dialogue |
| Decision and currency | Council renders the credentialing decision on the full record; credential valid three years from award; renewal fee $250 (third-party) |
The three steps, as the Council publishes them
Step one — Prepare. Meet the eligibility requirements and assemble the documentation: the education hours and their official records, the experience hours in the setting, and the Professional Portfolio prepared inside its six-month window. The Competency Standards book for the setting — the blue Family Child Care edition — governs the portfolio’s contents, and the Council requires candidates to purchase the setting-specific book before applying and to have it during the Verification Visit.
Step two — Apply. Select a CDA Professional Development Specialist through YourCouncil and obtain the specialist’s agreement and identification number, which the application requires. Then submit the completed application online through YourCouncil with the Council’s fee in full.
Step three — Demonstrate, then the decision. After approval, the first Ready to Schedule notice authorizes the CDA Exam at a Pearson VUE test center; results are submitted electronically to the Council by the testing center. Only after the exam is the candidate eligible to schedule the Verification Visit, under the second Ready to Schedule notice. The Council’s enhanced credentialing decision process, in effect since February 2, 2026, adds the branching rule: a candidate who demonstrates the qualifying level of competence on the exam, and who has met every other requirement, may receive a credentialing decision without a Verification Visit, with the portfolio reviewed by the Council; a candidate who does not reach that level completes the full process, including the Verification Visit in the home, before a decision is made. The Council keeps the qualifying criteria inside its proprietary credentialing framework and publishes no numeric score for it, so no figure appears in this guide. Where a visit occurs, the PD Specialist submits score recommendations, and the Council reviews the full record and renders the decision — award, with a digital certificate and badge delivered through the Council’s credential partner, or denial with recommendations on areas of improvement and the next steps to appeal or reapply.
Eligibility in detail
The education baseline is a high school diploma or GED, with one stated alternative: enrollment as a junior or senior in a high school career and technical program in early childhood education. The professional education requirement is 120 clock hours of formal early childhood education training covering the growth and development of children ages birth to 5 years, with no fewer than 10 training hours in each of the eight CDA subject areas: planning a safe and healthy learning environment; advancing children’s physical and intellectual development; supporting children’s social and emotional development; building productive relationships with families; managing an effective program operation; maintaining a commitment to professionalism; observing and recording children’s behavior; and understanding principles of child development and learning. The birth-to-5 span is this setting’s signature: unlike the center settings, whose training focus narrows to one age band, the family child care candidate’s education and experience both cover the whole of early childhood, because the group does.
Documentation decides whether hours count. Training may come from one agency or several, for credit or noncredit, but it must be earned through an agency or organization with expertise in early childhood teacher preparation; the Council does not accept training provided by individual consultants or from conference workshops for an initial application. Verification must come as an official transcript, a certificate of training, or a letter on the agency’s official letterhead, carrying the agency’s name, address, and logo, the course names, the subject area, the candidate’s name, the hours or credits awarded, the training dates, and the instructor’s official signature — with the ages covered stated where a course name has no age reference. Solo providers should audit certificates early: there is no center office holding a second copy, and repairs are the candidate’s own errand.
The experience requirement is 480 hours of professional work experience in a family child care setting with children ages birth to 5, obtained within the three years before the application is submitted. Paid and volunteer hours both count. The Council’s guidance lists settings that do not count toward the hours — babysitting, before- and after-school programs, Sunday school programs, and drop-in programs — and the distinction matters in this setting more than any other: informal babysitting in a home is not family child care practice, and hours are professional experience when they are worked inside a program the candidate can document against the standards.
Subject areas versus standards
The Council runs two frameworks in parallel. The eight subject areas govern the 120 training hours — a curriculum map with a 10-hour floor in each area, so a provider cannot arrive with deep activity training and no program-operation training, a gap this setting punishes quickly. The six Competency Standards govern the demonstration — the goals against which the portfolio statements are written, the exam samples judgement, and the PD Specialist records observation evidence, each goal carried by its Functional Areas, thirteen in total. Training answers “what have you studied, across the whole field?” The standards answer “what can you do, observably, with a mixed-age group, their families, and a one-person operation?” Preparation that audits each against its own question wastes no effort.
The Competency Standards, one by one
I — Safe, healthy learning environment (Safe; Healthy; Learning Environment)
The candidate provides a safe environment and teaches children safe practices; promotes health and nutrition and prevents illness; and uses the home’s space, relationships, materials, and routines to prepare a responsive environment that supports play, exploration, and learning. In a home, the hazards are a household’s hazards — kitchens, stairs, pets, cleaning products, a family’s own belongings — multiplied by an age span in which one child cruises toward every edge while another experiments with small objects. The assessed competence is systematic: regular safety checks, sanitation scaled to one adult’s hands, food handling in a home kitchen, and an arrangement that gives an infant protected floor space inside a room a four-year-old also uses fully.
II — Physical and intellectual competence (Physical; Cognitive; Communication; Creative)
The span is the story. Physical development runs from an infant’s first rolling to a five-year-old’s climbing and tool use; cognition from sensory investigation to early problem solving and pre-academic curiosity; communication from babble to extended storytelling; creative life from mouthing a shaker to dramatic play with a plot. The candidate advances all of it, often inside a single activity pitched at several levels at once. Exam scenarios in this standard reward the response that differentiates — the material, question, or role adjusted to the child — over the response that aims at the group’s middle and reaches no one in particular.
III — Social and emotional development and positive guidance (Self; Social; Guidance)
The small, stable, mixed-age group is a social curriculum in itself: younger children learn by proximity to older ones, and older children practise care and leadership that a single-age room cannot offer. The candidate gives each child security and a sense of self, helps children build social competence across ages, and guides behaviour toward self-discipline through environment, routine, and calm response — with expectations each age in the room can actually meet. Guidance that depends on verbal reasoning fails the youngest children in the group by design; the standard expects the provider to know that and to build the room so the predictable collisions rarely happen.
IV — Positive and productive relationships with families (Families)
A family child care roster is small enough that every family is known closely, and the partnership is correspondingly direct: daily communication at the door, shared knowledge of each child, and honest handling of the business side of the relationship — hours, fees, closures — inside the trust the care side builds. The candidate works in partnership with families, respects each family’s goals for their child, and supports each family’s strengths and needs. The portfolio’s Family Questionnaires carry this standard’s direct evidence, and with a small roster every family’s return matters; distribute them early in the six-month window and leave families unhurried time.
V — A well-run, purposeful program (Program Management)
This is the standard that separates this setting from the centers. The candidate is the whole management structure: planner, record keeper, food service, correspondent, and the person accountable to families and, where they apply, regulators. Competence here is systems a single person can sustain — planning that survives a sick day, records that are current because the routine makes them current, communication that does not depend on memory. Reflective writing for this standard should describe the systems as they are, including their weak points and the candidate’s repairs; an operation described as flawless reads as an operation not yet examined.
VI — Commitment to professionalism (Professionalism)
Working alone is this standard’s test. The candidate decides from knowledge of early childhood theory and practice without a colleague’s check, stays current in a field whose training events are usually scheduled for center staff, and belongs to the wider profession deliberately — through associations, provider networks, and the local early childhood community. The Professional Philosophy Statement anchors the standard in the portfolio; assessors read it against the observed home, and a philosophy the operation visibly lives is the strongest form the evidence takes.
The Professional Portfolio, component by component
The portfolio is compiled independently by each candidate, prepared within the six months before applying, and reviewed by the PD Specialist at the visit, or by the Council where the enhanced process routes the decision without a visit. Its components are education documentation; Family Questionnaires; the Resource Collection; the six Reflective Statements of Competence; and the Professional Philosophy Statement. The Resource Collection holds ten resources gathered for the Competency Goals as the blue Family Child Care edition directs — in this setting, honestly gathered resources lean heavily on the local: health, nutrition, family support, and small-business references the provider actually uses. The Reflective Statements are the writing core, one per standard. Two rules produce statements that hold up here. Write from the home’s real episodes — a mixed-age morning, a family conversation, an operation system under strain — because generic centre-based language pasted into a home setting is visible at once. And map each statement against its standard’s Functional Areas, checking visible coverage, since the review reads the statements as evidence mapped to those areas.
The CDA Exam, accurately framed
The exam is a computer-based test of 65 multiple-choice questions, delivered by Pearson VUE — the Council’s testing partner — at test centers around the country, and scheduled after the application is approved and the first Ready to Schedule notice arrives. Its scenarios are rooted in practice with young children across the full birth-to-5 span, and in this setting they reach into operation and family judgement as well as classroom response. Three framing facts keep expectations honest. The exam is necessary but not sufficient — no exam result by itself awards the credential, because the Council decides on the full record. The Council publishes no numeric passing score for candidates in its current materials; under the enhanced process the operative concept is the qualifying level of competence on the exam, held inside the Council’s proprietary framework, so any source quoting a percentage pass mark for the current exam is describing something the Council has not published. And the exam comes first in the demonstration sequence, its result determining whether the route continues to a Verification Visit in the home — a reason to sit it with preparation complete rather than as an early rehearsal.
The Verification Visit and the R.O.R. Model
Where a visit is required, the PD Specialist the candidate selected before applying conducts it in the candidate’s own home, during the program’s real operation. The Council structures the visit as the R.O.R. Model — Review, Observe, Reflect. In Review, the specialist examines the portfolio, the training transcripts and certificates, and the Family Questionnaires. In Observe, the specialist watches the candidate working with the children and records criterion evidence against the Functional Areas; in a home setting, the observation takes in the operation’s texture — transitions between care and household space, mixed-age interactions, the provider’s systems running live. In Reflect, specialist and candidate hold a reflective dialogue on the strengths and areas of growth found in the portfolio, seen in the observation, or identified in the Family Questionnaires. The specialist then submits the candidate’s scores electronically to the Council. The provider’s preparation is therefore structural: routines and records that run properly on an ordinary day, and a reflective account of them the candidate can give without notes.
A sequenced preparation plan
Phase one — audit. Test the setting against the Council’s definition: home-based, unrelated children aged 5 or younger, the local regulatory position understood. Audit training hours by subject area against the 10-hour floors with documentation checked element by element; count experience hours inside the three-year window.
Phase two — train and systematize. Complete missing subject-area hours, with program operation treated as a first-class gap if the audit shows one. Bring the operation’s systems up to the standard the visit will record: safety checks on a schedule, records with a routine that keeps them current, planning that covers the group’s full age span.
Phase three — write the portfolio, inside the six-month window. Distribute Family Questionnaires early — the roster is small and every return counts. Draft the six Reflective Statements from the home’s real episodes, map each against its Functional Areas, and write the philosophy statement last. Assemble the Resource Collection from references genuinely in use.
Phase four — apply and demonstrate. Select the PD Specialist, submit the application through YourCouncil with the fee, and sit the exam on the first Ready to Schedule notice with timed practice behind you. If a visit follows, prepare the ordinary day at its best — the home, the group, and the records as they run when the provider’s systems are working.
Common mistakes in this credential
One: misreading the setting — counting care of the candidate’s own relatives toward the observed group, or assuming a center’s small size makes it family child care; the Council’s definition turns on the home, the children’s ages, and their unrelated status. Two: banking babysitting hours as experience, when the Council’s guidance expressly excludes babysitting from the settings in which the hours can be earned. Three: understudying program management because the child-facing standards feel more natural — in this setting the operation is half the profession and the assessment weighs it. Four: writing reflective statements in center language, describing classrooms, co-teachers, and directors the candidate does not have; the review reads for the home the candidate actually runs. Five: treating the exam as the credential — relaxing after it while the portfolio review and any required visit remain, with the Council’s decision still to come.
Frequently asked questions
What are the three steps to the family child care CDA? Prepare, apply, and demonstrate, in the Council’s own framing: meet the education and experience requirements and prepare the Professional Portfolio; apply online through YourCouncil with the Council’s fee after selecting a PD Specialist; then take the CDA Exam and, where the Council requires one, complete the Verification Visit, after which the Council renders its decision.
How many questions are on the CDA Exam? The CDA Exam has 65 multiple-choice questions, delivered by computer at a Pearson VUE test center. It is scheduled only after the Council approves the application and issues the Ready to Schedule notice.
What score passes the CDA Exam? The Council does not publish a numeric passing score for the exam in its current candidate materials. Under the enhanced credentialing decision process, the operative standard is the Council’s qualifying level of competence on the exam, inside the Council’s proprietary framework; reaching it, with all other requirements met, can lead to a decision without a Verification Visit, and not reaching it routes the candidate through the full process including the visit.
Is a Verification Visit always required? Not under the current process. Since February 2, 2026, candidates who demonstrate the qualifying level of competence on the CDA Exam and meet all other requirements may receive a decision without a visit, with the Council reviewing the portfolio. All other candidates complete the Verification Visit with their PD Specialist before a decision.
What are the eight subject areas for the 120 hours? Planning a safe and healthy learning environment; advancing children’s physical and intellectual development; supporting children’s social and emotional development; building productive relationships with families; managing an effective program operation; maintaining a commitment to professionalism; observing and recording children’s behavior; and understanding principles of child development and learning — at least 10 of the 120 hours in each.
Can I earn this credential if my area does not regulate family child care? Yes, on the Council’s own definition: a family child care setting must meet at least the minimum level of applicable state and/or local regulations, and settings are also eligible in localities where there is no regulation of family child care. The credential itself is the Council’s; state licensing is a separate matter that this credential neither replaces nor confers.
Can volunteer experience count toward the 480 hours? Yes, provided the hours are professional work experience in a family child care setting with children ages birth to 5 within the three years before applying. Babysitting, before- and after-school programs, Sunday school, and drop-in programs do not count, per the Council’s guidance.
What does the credential cost at the Council? The Council’s application fee is $525, paid in full with the online application; it is a third-party fee to the Council for Professional Recognition, described by the Council as non-refundable and non-transferable. Renewal after three years carries the Council’s $250 renewal fee.
How is this CDA different from the dental CDA? Entirely. DANB’s Certified Dental Assistant credential belongs to dental assisting and is administered by the Dental Assisting National Board. This guide covers only the Council for Professional Recognition’s Child Development Associate credential for early childhood educators.
Does this program provide my 120 hours of training? No. PassProfessor’s program is preparation for the Council’s assessment. The 120 hours must be earned through an agency or organization with expertise in early childhood teacher preparation and documented as the Council requires; the Council states that it does not provide training itself and does not specifically endorse any training program.
When will the PassProfessor family child care program open? The program is in the works and enrollment is not open yet. Join the notify list on this page or on the companion program page and you will be emailed when enrollment opens.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Council for Professional Recognition or Pearson VUE? No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Council for Professional Recognition or Pearson VUE. The Council owns the credential, the standards, and the credentialing decision.