Care Courses Blog

If you are renew­ing your nation­al cen­ter-based or fam­i­ly child care Child Devel­op­ment Asso­ciate (CDA) cre­den­tial, you will need an Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion (ECE) Pro­fes­sion­al to serve as your ECE Review­er. Who can serve as an ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion (ECE) reviewer?

An ECE Review­er must have recent—within the last year—and first­hand knowl­edge of your capa­bil­i­ty as a care­giv­er for chil­dren in the set­ting of your cre­den­tial. The ECE Review­er must ver­i­fy on your appli­ca­tion that you have at least 80 hours of expe­ri­ence work­ing with chil­dren in your set­ting in the past year.

Early Childhood Education (ECE) Reviewer Requirements

An ECE Review­er must meet at least one of three edu­ca­tion requirements.

1. A four-year child devel­op­ment degree and two years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in ear­ly child care (at least one year work­ing direct­ly with the chil­dren and at least one year of respon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­fes­sion­al growth of anoth­er adult).
2. A two-year child devel­op­ment degree and four years of expe­ri­ence in ear­ly child care (at least two years work­ing direct­ly with the chil­dren and at least two years of respon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­fes­sion­al growth of anoth­er adult).
3. A valid CDA cre­den­tial; 12 col­lege cred­its or 180 clock hours of train­ing in ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion; and six years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in ear­ly child care (at least four years work­ing direct­ly with chil­dren and at least two years of respon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­fes­sion­al growth of anoth­er adult).

In the inter­est of objec­tiv­i­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty, there should be no con­flict of inter­est when choos­ing an Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion Review­er. The review­er must not be work­ing with you as a co-teacher on a dai­ly basis in the same group or home; must not be relat­ed to you; and must not be relat­ed to a child in your care.

More infor­ma­tion on the require­ments of an ECE Review­er can be found in Infor­ma­tion for the Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion (ECE) Review­er from the Coun­cil for Pro­fes­sion­al Recog­ni­tion. For more infor­ma­tion on renew­ing your CDA, read the Renew­al Pro­ce­dures Guide.

Look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist for your CDA cre­den­tial­ing process? Read our blog Who is my PD Specialist?

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