SPEAK– Making a Difference in Our Region and in Our Nation
In our city and across
our nation, the demand for direct support professionals (DSPs) is growing fast.
All one needs to do is to pick up any
Employment Bulletin
and see the number of listings for DSP positions. The U.S. Department of Labor
expects personal and home health aide jobs to grow from 624,000 in 2004 to
974,000 in 2014. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic and Employment
Projections, Table 3b:
Fastest growing
occupations, 2004-14. Found online at
www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t06.htm February
20, 2006). It’s pretty safe to say that no matter what the city, there always
will be positions available. Not only are private pay consumers increasingly
seeking such services, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s
Olmstead
decision and President Bush’s
New Freedom Initiative
have mobilized states to provide more long-term care in homes or other
community-based settings.
In most parts of the country, however, supply already is lagging behind
demand. Low wages, inadequate training, increased responsibilities, limited
opportunities for career advancement, and a variety of other factors discourage
new candidates from entering the field and cause many experienced workers to
leave. These factors combine to lower morale and increase turnover. To pile
insult on top of injury, there is also a tendency for the general public to see
DSP work as unskilled and menial.
What can be done? There are a number of initiatives being implemented across
our nation to improve the quality of the job. The Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) has awarded 10 grants designed to demonstrate the impact
of different interventions on the recruitment and retention of DSPs. Other
states benefiting from these funds in addition to Kentucky are Maine, New
Mexico, Arkansas, Virginia, Washington, Indiana, Louisiana, Delaware, and North
Carolina. These programs are designed to test the effectiveness of a variety of
supports for frontline workers (DSPs). In Kentucky, these funds have enabled us
to develop a trade association for DSPs. Our supports include offering DSP
applicants a realistic preview of the work prior to them accepting a position.
We also offer a mentoring/apprenticeship program, ongoing training and
discussion opportunities, and recognition for reaching tenure milestones. SPEAK
also helps educate and celebrate the important and vital work that DSPs provide
in our community. Other grantees use their funds to provide different supports,
such as affordable healthcare coverage for frontline workers. CMS hopes to
discover which specific supports are necessary to attract and maintain an
adequate supply of DSPs for the anticipated increase in demand in the upcoming
years. Is SPEAK one of the projects that is making a difference in this field?
We find ourselves rapidly approaching the halfway mark of our demonstration
grant and, at this point, SPEAK has offered its supports for slightly more than
one year. In that time, we have been tracking employment trends that
demonstrate that SPEAK is meeting much success. Retention rates have increased
while turnover rates have dropped (See Chart).
With national turnover rates averaging more than 50%, it is encouraging to
see that SPEAK is making a real difference. Collectively, the turnover rate for
SPEAK Partners is 35%, well under the national average. Our average collective
retention rate is nearly 37 months (more than three years). Compared to
national figures, we are confident that supports are impacting the DSP industry
in Louisville, and will, perhaps in time, affect this workforce nationwide.
In one year, the retention rate improved from an average of 31 months to
nearly 37 months. In the last quarter, we watched the turnover rate fall from
43% to 35%. We report results to officials in Washington who compare results
from the other demonstrations and determine which supports are most effective.
SPEAK expects to see our trend continue thanks to our partners executive
directors for buying into this project and owning SPEAK’s goals and objectives.
Thanks to supervisors who spend time and energy encouraging DSP staff to take
part in our mentoring, our trainings, and our conversational lunches. Thanks to
the hundreds of DSPs who continue to receive supports from our association.
Each and every one of you play an important role in SPEAK. Without your
commitments to this field and to this project, we could not exist. With your
commitments, we are making a difference.
Good Staff, Bad Staff, No Staff at All: Advice From Consumers
by Jim Beaty and Nathan
Perry
Jim
Beaty and Nathan Perry are consumers of services provided by direct support
professionals. They shared the following thoughts.
To us, it really is
simple – if agencies have good staff, we have good lives. If agencies have bad
staff who aren’t trained, don’t understand our disabilities or have attitude
problems, we suffer the effects.
We’ve been through the system, that’s for sure! Institutions, groups homes,
special education, supported living, workshops, real jobs and semi-independent
living. We’ve had more staff than we can count, some good and some bad. But,
most of them have been really caring and nice.
To us,
good staff:
1. Are supportive and try hard to understand our problems. 2. Have creative
ideas to help us resolve our anger and control our own behavior. 3. Know about
our disabilities and understand the things that are out of our control. 4. Try
to understand where we are coming from.
5. Don’t hold grudges. 6. Are there for us when we need them. 7. Are loyal,
honest, and respectful. 8. Don’t see their job as “just a job” but as an
opportunity to help people fit into society. 9. Go out of their way for us.
10. Are trustworthy.
To
us,
bad staff: 1. Don’t
show up for work when they are supposed to. 2. Yell at us and threaten us. 3.
Have bad attitudes. 4. Don’t care about us. 5. Are disrespectful. 6. Steal
our things from us. 7. Sit around all day just waiting until it is time to
leave. 8. Hit us or put us in seclusion.
It really affects us when there are no staff to hire or when staff are hired and
leave. When there are not enough staff to work with us, it means that we sit
around and are bored. For us this leads to doing things that get us into trouble
like gambling with lottery tickets, fighting, or spending all of our money on
stuff so we don’t have money to pay our bills. It makes us feel like we are put
on the back burner and neglected because there is no one there to help us with
our shopping, banking, bills, solving problems or doing stuff in the community.
When staff who we really like are hired and then leave it makes us feel lost
and mad. It seems like we lose friends and companions. There are a lot of past
staff who we really liked, but haven’t seen in years and really miss. It seems
like we just get to know them and then they give up on us and quit. Then we have
to start all over. Sometimes it makes us feel violated because they say they
really care and are interested in our lives, but then they leave.
We don’t like it when staff are hired who we don’t know or haven’t met. Most
of the time we get to interview new staff and get to know them before they are
hired. But, sometimes they just show up. When that happens, it stresses us out.
Also, it is important for staff to be trained and to understand us as people
and our specific disabilities. If staff don’t understand Tourettes or autism,
there is no way they can understand us and provide the supports we need to live
successfully in the community.
We think it is really important that agencies and the government do whatever
they can to help people with disabilities find staff who understand us, want to
work for us, and are willing to stick by us. We also think our staff need to get
paid more money and also be respected by people in society.
Jim
Beaty is a consumer and self-advocate who lives in Indiana, and Nathan Perry is
a consumer and self-advocate who lives in Minnesota.
Article Reprinted with Permission from
Impact
Magazine: Feature Issue on Direct Support Workforce Development, 10(4).
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Dear Beth,
I
have a co-worker who does the bare minimum of what is required. This person
never goes above and beyond performing assigned tasks and often creates a
negative environment that discourages other workers and clients. What should I
do?
Please Help,
Desperate DSP
Dear Desperate DSP,
In
the world of work, that happens far too often but before you despair, there are
some things that you might want to try.
As discussed in SPEAK’s lecture series,
Can’t
We ALL Just Get Along (at work)?,
first and foremost, do your own personal inventory and make sure you are doing
all
you
can to build mutual respect with your co-worker. Are you a team player? Do you
communicate with your co-worker in a kind and respectful way? Are you respecting
confidences of your co-worker? Are you aware of different work styles and, where
possible, work to each of your strengths?
Once you have taken your personal inventory with rigorous honesty and
corrected those things on which you may be falling short, then the next step is
confronting the problem with your co-worker with a possible outcome of a win-win
negotiated solution or a compromise. Experts agree that you shouldn’t wait for a
disagreement to become so entrenched that neither of you has the capacity or
desire to resolve the issue. So my advice is to resolve a conflict as soon as it
starts and do it constructively. If the initial discussion does not clear up the
problem, consider asking a co-worker to help mediate or share issue(s) with your
supervisor. Remember, no one is perfect. Stay positive and don’t lose your
sense of humor. Without it, life can be pretty painful!
Do you have a question that you would like to “Ask Beth?”
Email
your questions to:
brichardson@councilonmr.org
Or send them to:
Beth Richardson
101 Witherspoon St
Louisville KY 40202
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