The CDA Family Questionnaire is a required part of the CDA Professional Portfolio: the Council for Professional Recognition requires candidates to distribute the questionnaires to the families they serve and include the returned forms in the portfolio they submit.
How many must come back is not published on the Council's website — the figure is set in the Competency Standards book for your setting.
Here is who gets one, how distribution works, and what to do when few come back.
What is the CDA Family Questionnaire for?
The Family Questionnaire is one of the required contents of the CDA portfolio.
The Council for Professional Recognition — the body that awards the CDA credential — lists the portfolio's contents as education documentation, Family Questionnaires, six Reflective Statements of Competence, ten Resources and a Professional Philosophy Statement.
The questionnaires are the families' contribution to that file.
The Council's candidate FAQ puts the requirement plainly: "Candidates are required to distribute the questionnaires to the families they serve and include them in their CDA Professional Portfolio." Two duties follow: you hand the forms out to the families in your care, and the returned forms end up filed inside the portfolio you submit.
If you have seen the form referred to as the CDA parent questionnaire, the Council's term is Family Questionnaire.
And the questionnaires are not a formality for your own records: when your process includes a verification visit, the Professional Development Specialist reviews your portfolio and your Family Questionnaires as the Review step of the Council's R.O.R. model — Review, Observe, Reflect.
Who gets one, and how many must come back?
The Council's wording is "the families they serve." The Council's public pages we read do not spell out which families that covers in each setting — another detail to check in the book described below.
How many have to come back?
The Council's public pages we read do not state a minimum number of returned questionnaires.
That figure is specified in the Competency Standards book for your setting — the book every initial CDA candidate is required to purchase — and the Council does not reproduce it on its web pages.
Read the portfolio instructions in the current book for your setting before you distribute anything.
No minimum is published online
How to hand them out and collect them
You will distribute from your own classroom: the CDA requires 480 hours of professional work experience in the credential's setting and age group within the 3 years before you apply, so the hours behind your application come from classrooms where you have recently worked — and if you are still in one, the families receiving forms are ones you already see at drop-off and pickup.
If you are between classrooms while your portfolio comes together, childcare teacher jobs list current openings at childcare centers and preschools.
Timing is the part to get right.
The portfolio must be prepared within the six months before you submit your application, and since February 2, 2026, applications submitted on or after that date must include a professional portfolio uploaded with the application — which means the returned questionnaires need to be in hand before application day, not after it. (Home Visitor candidates follow a different process: the Council notes their portfolio is reviewed onsite by a PD Specialist rather than uploaded.) Build in weeks, not days.
- Hand each family the questionnaire with a short note explaining it is part of your CDA application
- Put a return date on the note so families know when you need it back
- Offer to answer questions at pickup, or to give a family a few quiet minutes to complete it on the spot
- Keep a simple list of which families have returned a form and who still has one
- File returned questionnaires into your portfolio draft the day they come back, so nothing goes missing before you upload
What if families don't return them?
Start with what is known: the Council's public pages we read do not state a minimum, and they do not describe what happens when fewer forms come back than the book requires.
The Competency Standards book is the authority for the minimum itself; for everything the book does not settle, the Council for Professional Recognition is the body to ask.
The practical hedge is distribution breadth.
Give a form to every family you serve rather than a hand-picked few, and follow up in person at pickup rather than relying on a second sheet left in the cubby.
Because the questionnaires depend on other people, they are the one portfolio item whose timing you do not control — start them early in your six-month window.
Two scope notes worth keeping straight.
Family Questionnaires belong to the initial credential: the Council's renewal requirements are 4.5 CEUs, or a 3-credit college course, or 45 clock hours of early childhood education training completed after your current credential's issue date, plus current membership in an early childhood professional organization, at least 80 hours working with young children in the past year, and a recommendation from an ECE Reviewer — no questionnaires on that list.
And the forms travel inside the portfolio you submit with your application, which is why a slow return is a problem on application day specifically.
If returns look thin
Does it affect your score?
The questionnaires are not part of the CDA exam.
The exam is a separate step — 65 multiple-choice questions, 60 standard items plus 5 scenario questions, with up to 1 hour 45 minutes — and since February 2, 2026, candidates who score at a qualifying level on it skip the verification visit entirely.
The questionnaires live on the portfolio side: when your process does include a visit, the Professional Development Specialist reviews your portfolio and your Family Questionnaires, observes you working with children, and reflects with you.
The Council does not publish a passing score for the exam, and the public pages we read set out no scoring rubric or weighting for the questionnaires.
So the honest answer to "does it affect your score" is this: the questionnaires are a required portfolio item, the portfolio is a reviewed part of the credentialing process, and that is as far as the published record goes.
Treat them as non-optional, and make sure the returned forms are inside the portfolio you submit with your application.
This page is career information about a credential process, not licensing or legal advice. The CDA and its portfolio requirements are set and administered by the Council for Professional Recognition; confirm current details with the Council and with the Competency Standards book for your setting before you apply.