Care Courses Blog

Are you pur­su­ing a Nation­al CDA? Are you ready to start your Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio? Care Cours­es wants to help!

So how do you cre­ate your CDA Pro­fes­sion­al Portfolio? 

Any­one pur­su­ing their CDA Cre­den­tial should pur­chase the Com­pe­ten­cy Stan­dards Book, which is avail­able through the CDA Council’s web­site. This book gives step-by-step instruc­tions on how to build your Pro­fes­sion­al Portfolio.

The five main com­po­nents to a Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio are:

1. The MY CDA Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio cov­er sheet.  This is a check­list of all the items you need in your Pro­fes­sion­al Portfolio.
2. The Sum­ma­ry of MY CDA Edu­ca­tion cov­er sheet, fol­lowed by all of your cer­tifi­cates, let­ters, and transcripts.
3. The Fam­i­ly Ques­tion­naire cov­er sheet, fol­lowed by your com­plet­ed Fam­i­ly Questionnaires. 
4. Six Reflec­tive State­ments of Com­pe­tence, fol­lowed by the relat­ed Resource Col­lec­tion items as out­lined on the MY CDA Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio cov­er sheet. 
5. Your Pro­fes­sion­al Phi­los­o­phy State­ment. This is a sum­ma­ry of your pro­fes­sion­al view­point, which should reflect new ideas you learned through com­plet­ing your train­ing and portfolio.

You should have your Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio com­plet­ed by the time you apply for your CDA Credential. 

Now that you have read through the steps above. Watch our video tuto­r­i­al on how to pre­pare your CDA portfolio. 

Next Steps

Have you locat­ed your pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist yet? Do you have more ques­tions about your CDA? Read the fol­low­ing blogs to learn more:

• Who is my CDA Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment Specialist?
• What’s an ear­ly child­hood pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion membership?
• What is My CDA Exam and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Vis­it Deadline?

For addi­tion­al assis­tance with prepar­ing your Pro­fes­sion­al Port­fo­lio for your Nation­al CDA Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Vis­it, con­tact our office! Call us: 1–800-685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!