Initial Requirements
Certification as a Child and Youth Care Professional is a meaningful way to demonstrate your experience and skills to colleagues, employers, and the children and families you serve.
Successful candidates are those who demonstrate a full range of knowledge and skills of competent practice. They often have experience in multiple practice settings in a variety of direct care, program, supervisory, and/or administrative roles. Many provide supervision to other personnel, serve as program developers, administrators, researchers, instructors, or trainers.
Requirements include:
- 5 years experience in the field (or less with related education)
- 250 hours of documented training across the competency domains
- Passing score on the situational-judgement based exam
- Completed application (332 kb pdf) and portfolio (161 kb doc)
- Demonstration of professional engagement
- Supervisor assessment and two professional references
The education and experience requirement may be met by any of the following:
United States
- Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university and two years (4,000 hours) documented experience
- Master’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university and one year (2,000 hours) documented experience
Canada
- Two-year Child and Youth Care diploma and three years (6,000 hours) documented experience including the internship, practicum, and/or placement hours included in the diploma program
- Three-year Child and Youth Care diploma and 19 months (5,000 hours) documented experience including the internship, practicum, and/or placement hours included in the diploma program
Through December 31, 2012 the following are also accepted:
- No degree and five years (10,000 hours) of documented experience
- Associate’s Degree and three years (6,000 hours) documented experience
Provisional certification is available for those who meet the bachelor’s degree requirement, but have not yet accrued adequate experience to qualify for certification. Qualifying degrees for provisional certification include those with a focus on children, youth, and families (i.e. child and adolescent psychology, child and youth development, juvenile justice, sociology, special education, etc.). The duration of provisional certification is 30 months, during which the practitioner is expected to gain the experience required for full certification. All other requirements remain the same as indicated for full certification.