Many of you are out of town right now, but those who are not
may have heard or read one of these news items concerning the DSP Academy,
hosted by RCM of Washington (https://rcmofwashington.com/)
and funded by DDS (https://dds.dc.gov/):
This is an exciting new initiative that has potential both to
expand the local pool of direct support professionals (DSPs) and to offer more employment
options to people with disabilities. It’s
a great program that hopefully will expand in future.
Also noteworthy in this regard is UDC’s addition of a DSP
career pathway to their workforce curriculum:
These are welcome new developments on the DSP front locally,
although the shortage of DSPs here and around the country continues to be
acute. When I attended the meeting of
the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD) in
July, we viewed an important film called “Invaluable” addressing the essential and
demanding role played by DSPs nationwide – you’ll find a short clip from this
film here: http://www.supportedliving.com/page-1646896,
but I hope we can arrange for a local viewing of the entire film before long.
You’ll recall that there was a hearing in the D.C. Council back
in June to discuss pending legislation concerning compensation for DSPs in
D.C. I discussed that hearing in this
blog post: https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/06/a-fair-deal-for-direct-support.html. I haven’t heard much about the legislation
since that time, but I hope that will change when the council (https://dccouncil.us/) returns from its recess
in mid-September.
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