About

Mission Statement

To provide leadership and support to members and the broader career development community in Nova Scotia.

Vision Statement

Career development is recognized as a career of choice in Nova Scotia; Certified Career Development Practitioners are recognized as professionals; and NSCDA is recognized as a leader in the career development sector.

What is the NSCDA?

The Nova Scotia Career Development Association is an inclusive not-for-profit organization that provides strategic leadership to career developers in all areas of the field, in Nova Scotia. We promote effective practices through the communication of information, providing professional development, and encouraging the adoption of frameworks promoting enhanced client-centred services. We achieve our goals and continue to help career developers improve through membership, professional development, conferences and events, and various special projects, and certification.

Starting in 2006, the NSCDA, its members and other stakeholders began working towards the development and implementation of a certification process for Career Development Practitioners (CDPs). With the launch of the CCDP Program in 2014, Nova Scotia joined British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in offering professional certification.

The Nova Scotia Career Development Association has been certifying Career Development Practitioners since 2015, when the first CDP completed the process. Our trademarked process is based on the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)?.

Career developers are the go-to experts who help people make life and career choices.

You’ll find career developers working as Career Development Practitioners (CDPs) at your local Nova Scotia Works Centre, but they work in many places and have many titles, such as social worker, life coach, school counsellor, youth worker, disability support worker, and more.

Career developer is the general term given to anyone working in the career development field. They can have many different types of jobs and titles including: social worker, life coach, school counsellor, youth worker, disability support worker, and more.

Career developers who work in Nova Scotia Works (NSW) centres are called Career Development Practitioners (CDPs). There may be other organizations that use the same term, but within the NSW centres, that is the formal title.

When a career developer or a CDP becomes certified, they are then referred to as a Certified Career Development Practitioner (CCDP).