Care Courses Blog

Inter­est­ed in obtain­ing your Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial? You can use Care Cours­es toward the 120 clock hours of train­ing you need to get your CDA cre­den­tial, issued by the Coun­cil for Pro­fes­sion­al Recog­ni­tion. Once you obtain your CDA from the CDA coun­cil, you will meet the require­ments need­ed to obtain your Flori­da Staff Credential.

How to Earn a Florida Staff Credential

There are sev­er­al ways to earn a Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial. One is to have a “Nation­al Ear­ly Child­hood Cre­den­tial.” The Flori­da Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies defines a Nation­al Ear­ly Child­hood Cre­den­tial as: “Nation­al Child Devel­op­ment Asso­ciate (CDA) or oth­er ear­ly child­hood cre­den­tial that meets or exceeds the require­ments of the Nation­al CDA and is rec­og­nized by reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies in at least five states.” 

Fur­ther­more, the Nation­al CDA Cre­den­tial is one of the most wide­ly rec­og­nized ear­ly child­hood cre­den­tials in the coun­try. You must be renew your CDA every three years. (You can also use Care Cours­es to con­ve­nient­ly renew your CDA Cre­den­tial and Flori­da Staff Credential.) 

If you already have a col­lege degree in ear­ly child­hood or a relat­ed field or have the FCCPC or oth­er ear­ly child­hood cre­den­tial, we rec­om­mend review­ing the Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial Resource Page to learn how your edu­ca­tion can be used to get your Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial. Once you have met the edu­ca­tion require­ments of the Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial, it is time to sub­mit your appli­ca­tion. You can down­load the appli­ca­tion from the same website.

How do I renew my Florida Staff Credential? 

Care Cours­es are accept­ed for the 4.5 CEUs (45 clock hours) need­ed for renew­al of Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tials. This includes the renew­al of the Child Devel­op­ment Asso­ciate Cre­den­tial (CDA), the Flori­da Birth through Five Child Care Cre­den­tial, the Flori­da School Age Child Care Cre­den­tial, and the Flori­da Director’s Cre­den­tial. Care Cours­es is an IACET accred­it­ed CEU Provider and all of our cours­es offer IACET CEUs. Learn more about how you can use Care Cours­es’ IACET accred­it­ed cours­es for DCF training. 

If you obtained your Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial by get­ting your Nation­al CDA, you may use our train­ing to renew your CDA and Staff Cre­den­tial! Use Care Cours­es’ dis­count­ed CDA renew­al sets to renew. You must renew your Nation­al CDA every three years to renew your staff credential. 

What about the FCCPC?

You can use a Flori­da Child Care Pro­fes­sion­al Cre­den­tial (FCCPC), like the Nation­al CDA, to obtain your Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial. The Nation­al CDA and FCCPC have very sim­i­lar require­ments as well. For both the Nation­al CDA and FCCPC, you must obtain 120 hours of train­ing and 480 hours of work expe­ri­ence. You must also com­plete a pro­fes­sion­al port­fo­lio, and an obser­va­tion vis­it (among oth­er require­ments). Both require 45 clock hours of train­ing to renew. You must renew the Nation­al CDA every 3 years and an FCCPC every 5 years. Please note that Care Cours­es are not accept­ed towards obtain­ing the FCCPC; how­ev­er, you can use Care Cours­es to renew a Flori­da Staff Cre­den­tial obtained using an FCCPC. 

Benefits of a National CDA

One ben­e­fit of the Nation­al CDA is that it is already accept­ed toward child care require­ments around the coun­try. There­fore, you can apply it toward oth­er state require­ments in the event that you move and want to work in child care in anoth­er state. Read our blog about what the Nation­al CDA can do for you in oth­er states!

Do you have more ques­tions? Check out our Flori­da child care train­ing page to learn how our cours­es can be used in Flori­da. Give us a call and our CDA experts will be hap­py to dis­cuss how you can obtain your CDA.

Care Courses Support

Please let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! 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!

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