April 2007
A Message from Bill Tapp
To do good work, you must first have good tools. - Chinese Proverb
Spring is here….a time of new beginnings.
As a gardener, I anxiously await the first warm days to begin the hopeful process of planting. With much work and tending, we have the enjoyment of a summer of garden wonders. As I think about the College of Direct Support and all those I am fortunate to meet along the way, I often use this phrase to begin my sessions – To do good work, you must first have good tools.
Since the last edition of Connections@CDS, we have been privileged to meet with such groups as the Tennessee Microboards, Virginia’s Workforce Development Team, the Moore Center of New Hampshire, as well as the University of Sydney and the Royal Rehabilitation Centre in Australia, just to mention a few. Each of these and many others see the need to focus on the most important two aspects of Community Inclusion, the people served and those who serve. It is the focus of this edition of Connections@CDS to inspire you to have not only good tools but great tools to support a 21st Century direct care workforce.
As a Learning Management System (LMS) the CDS provides many of the tools you need to support the great work that is ahead. I look forward to hearing your comments and sharing with others your good work.
It’s spring...time to plant!
Bill Tapp
CDS National Director
CDS Goes ‘Down Under’ to Australia After Amy Hewitt’s Four-Month Stay
The College of Direct Support has arrived in Australia.
Amy Hewitt of the University of Minnesota’s College of Direct Support (CDS) team has recently returned to the U.S. after spending four months in Australia working at the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies at the University of Sydney, where she was a Visiting Scholar.
While there, Hewitt worked to get the CDS ready for an Australian launch. Her time was spent learning about the direct support workforce in Australia, meeting with key stakeholders to learn how the CDS might be used in Australia, customizing the new CDS Australian website, assisting in the development of a national Code of Ethics and training the lead CDS administrator.
Hewitt is the Training Director and a Research Associate at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration. She directs federal and state research, evaluation and demonstration projects in the area of direct support staff workforce development, and community services for people with disabilities. Ms. Hewitt is a national leader in the area of workforce development. The university’s Institute, directed by Charlie Lakin, is responsible for the development of the CDS curriculum.
Hewitt says that Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) in Australia have similar jobs to DSPs in the United States, providing support and services to people with disabilities in a wide variety of settings. About half of the DSPs in Australia work for state government-run services (a much higher percentage than in the U.S.). DSPs’ wages average between $16 and $18 per hour ($12-$14 U.S. dollars) and there is about a $2 to $3 difference between the salaries of state employees and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) employees with NGO workers making less. Hewitt learned that the average turnover rate as reported in state and national studies is significantly lower than in the U.S. with a reported average of less than 20%. This compares to average turnover in the U.S. of around 50%. Vacancy rates nearly mirror those reported in the U.S. with an average in Australia of between 15% and 20%, depending on the study.
Australia has a widely used national certification program for DSPs. This program, called Certification Level III in Disability Work, offers a competency based framework for people in direct support roles working in the community supporting people with disabilities. It was developed in the 1990’s at the same time the Community Support Skill Standards evolved in the United States. This certification program outlines the required competencies for DSPs, how their performance should be measured, and requires that their training is delivered by a Registered Training Organization (RTO) that uses qualified trainers. NGOs and educational institutions serve in the capacity of RTOs in Australia.
“The CDS is based on the Community Support Skill Standards. The competencies required of DSPs through the Certificate III program in Australia and those embedded throughout the CDS have remarkable overlap,” she said. While in Australia, Hewitt spent a good amount of time completing a cross walk between learning the objectives of Certificate III courses and those included in the CDS courses. More than 90% of the Certificate III learning objectives were sufficiently covered in the CDS curriculum, she said. Using the customization feature built into the CDS, Hewitt was able to bring the Certificate III competencies into the CDS.
With assistance from Tony Harman, a research fellow at the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies, Hewitt worked to customize some of the CDS content to ensure its relevance to the Australian audience. Even the lesson on “The History of Developmental Disability” in the course on “Introduction to Developmental Disabilities” had remarkable relevance to the Australian context. “By adding new Australian editors to the CDS editorial board, working with the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies to author new courses and adding an Australian to the CDS National Advisory Board, it seems possible to make the CDS-Australia an effective means to get training and certification to DSPs who work in this country,” Hewitt said.
Bill Tapp, CDS National Director, says negotiations are underway to make the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies the Australia CDS agent. This would result in CDDS marketing the product, providing training to administrators and rolling out the curriculum in Australia, he added. “With the leadership and enthusiasm from CDDS Director Trevor Parmenter and Harman, the CDS is bound to be as much of a success Down Under as it has been here in the United States,” Tapp said.
Tapp and Jim Hicks, Senior Vice President of MCS/Elsevier, parent company of CDS, spent a week in Australia. They met with Hewitt, Parmenter, Harman and other officials, including Peter Williamson, Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Rehabilitation Centre in Sydney, about the integration of the CDS into the Australian workforce development efforts.
CDS Unveils New Website
The College of Direct Support’s new website and resource center has been rolled out and is available on the Internet. It’s a brand new site with a familiar URL -- collegeofdirectsupport.com
The new site tells you all about the CDS – the who, the what, the why – and our FAQ section (Frequently Asked Questions) does just that – it’ll answer many of your questions about the CDS as we work to develop a professional workforce of Direct Support Professionals around the country.
You can read our Mission Statement and our 10 core values that define and drive all that we do. You will be introduced to the CDS development team in the Knoxville headquarters, at the University of Minnesota and in our Atlanta office.
Our distinguished National Advisory Board is found on the new site along with our National Board of Editors that author and serve as editors in the development of our curriculum. The entire CDS curriculum and the courses in the College of Frontline Supervision and Management are listed.
Also new to the CDS site is a nine-minute video in which Direct Support Professionals and others talk about the effectiveness of the CDS and the impact it is having in their support roles and on the lives of their clients. The video is found on the opening Home page of the site. Just click on “Watch Our Video.”
Where is the CDS used? We have an interactive U.S. map feature and you’re a click away from learning in which state the CDS is being used and how many learners are currently enrolled in each state. We will update this map monthly, so keep coming back to see what’s happening around the country.
Our “demo site” is also found on our Home page. Click on the Demo site and it will guide you to give you more information about it and one more click takes you directly to the Demo site. You must have a learner ID and a password to access the CDS demo.
There’s more.
All of our publications are displayed and archived on the site – the Partner Profiles, our new quarterly eNewsletter Connections@CDS, our brochures, a trifold and a larger more thorough brochure, and our Evaluation Briefs. All of these can be downloaded and printed for your use.
And there’s still more.
Many of you have asked about CDS items to be used for various purposes – gifts, graduations, or as prizes. You’ll find CDS cups, shirts, pens, lanyards, bags, backpacks and caps all with the CDS logo embedded on them. They are all available under the button “Store” at the top of the page. You can order directly from the CDS Store with your credit card. You’ll also find CDS paperweights, carabiner key tags and even cyber notepads. Check out the CDS Store.
And last but not least, there is a Contact page where you can write to us with your questions and comments and we’ll be in touch.
Technical and design work on the site was done by The Wilson Group Advertising of Knoxville and we thank them for their hard work.
We hope you will enjoy our new site and visit with us often at www.collegeofdirectsupport.com
Thaler Named CEO of NASDDDS
She has been a special education teacher, a Direct Support professional, a foster parent, a live-in group home manager and manager in a large non-profit agency serving people with disabilities in Pennsylvania and Delaware.
She is a passionate advocate, an experienced administrator, a former state and federal administrator and a person who has never forgotten nor betrayed her roots.
Nancy Thaler, who on March 1 became the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS), succeeds Bob Gettings, who will retire in June after directing the NASDDDS for 36 years.
“This is the wonderful job,” Thaler says. “It’s a good fit for me because I believe in effective government. People with developmental disabilities and their families have to rely on government, especially state government, because very few can afford to purchase services privately. Government has to get it right.”
Ms. Thaler knows the NASDDDS well. From 1995 to 2003 she was a member of the organization’s Board of Directors and its President from 1999-2001.
“My task in this new job is to stay the course that has been set by the board and Bob and to maintain the capacity of NASDDDS to anticipate what states need to know in both trends and in the policy arena.” she said. “We’ve got to help states respond to the growing expectations of consumers and families, the need to get the most from available funding, the expectations for quality, and accountability and the system changes that these pressures require.”
Ms. Thaler served as Deputy Secretary for Mental Retardation in the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare from 1999 to 2003, overseeing a system with a $2 billion budget and more than 4,000 employees that served 80,000 children and adults. Major strides were made in downsizing and closing six large, state-operated centers and expanding home and community-based services during her 16-year tenure with the department (including six years as director of the Office of Mental Retardation’s Bureau of Community Services).
After leaving Pennsylvania State Government in 2003, she served for two and a half years as the Director of Quality Improvement Strategies with the Disabled and Elderly Health Programs Group within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In this capacity, she played a crucial role in developing the new Medicaid home and community-based waiver application process and in articulating the components of a comprehensive statewide quality management system for home and community-based services.
Prior to starting at NASDDDS, Ms. Thaler was Vice President of Operations for Liberty Healthcare Corp.
For eight years, in the 1970s, she and husband Karl Williams worked at Ken Crest in Philadelphia, in a small institution and for four years as houseparents. During that time they met Aaron, who was 7 years old, living in an institution and looking for a family. He found one. They adopted Aaron and today, at age 43, he lives and works in Philadelphia.
Ms. Thaler was reared on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania. “It was a wonderful childhood,” she said. “There were two messages in our home; the importance of learning and social justice. My parents had social justice embedded in their souls and you had better never think or say that you are better than any other human being.”
She says she was “enormously moved and influenced” by President John F. Kennedy. “He embodied social justice and challenged us all to do something for others” she said.
While Ms. Thaler was Deputy Secretary in Pennsylvania the state became the first state to sign a contract to use the College of Direct Support. In 2006, Pennsylvania extended that initial three-year contract for another three years.
“One of the earliest presentations for the CDS was at the Reinventing Quality conferences attended by Nancy Thaler,” said Bill Tapp, CDS National Director. “She caught the vision and signed on the dotted line making CDS available to all providers, consumers and families in the state.”
Ms. Thaler has a Master’s degree of Human Organization Science from Villanova University and is the recipient of the 2003 Censori Award of Excellence in Public Services from the NASDDDS and the 2003 Leadership Award from the then American Association on Mental Retardation, now the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
University of Delaware to Host Leadership Institute
The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Delaware will host a week-long 2007 Summer Leadership Institute from July 15-20 on campus in Newark, DE, for those interested in leadership positions in the field of developmental disabilities.
The class will be limited to approximately 20 participants, which offers opportunities for collaboration and creating an enduring network of support.
The Institute is sponsored by the University’s Center for Disability Studies, the ANCOR Foundation, the Council on Quality and Leadership, Liberty Healthcare and the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services.
It will begin at 12 noon on Saturday, July 15, with a welcome lunch and end at noon on Friday, July 20.
The fee for the Leadership Institute is $1,500. That covers a light breakfast, lunch and two dinners during the week. Travel and lodging expenses are the responsibility of the participants. There is a discount on the hotel room. Upon acceptance to the Institute, payment must be made by June 15.
There also is an opportunity to receive three graduate credits from the university for an additional fee.
To learn more about the Leadership Institute and its faculty and course details, you can click on http://nlcdd.org/week-long-institute.html or contact Mary Thomas at maryt@edel.edu or Nancy Weiss at nweiss@udel.edu or call them at 1.302.831.2940.
TMA Says CDS is Valuable Part of Its Training
The College of Direct Support’s latest Partner Profile and Evaluation Brief are both new and posted in this newsletter and are available on our website.
The Partner Profile is about the Tennessee Microboards Association, Inc. (TMA), which was formed in 2001 to provide development support and training to individual microboards across the state. The idea of microboards was introduced in Tennessee through a presentation by Jackie Golden at a Partners in Policymaking conference. Following this, the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities issued a call for investment to establish a statewide microboard association, the only such association in the country.
Dr. Ruthie Beckwith was chosen to lead this exciting Tennessee initiative. After five years, there are 31 microboards in operation throughout the state, and 30 more which are in the process of being established.
TMA began to search for additional training resources that would offer an alternative to what was provided by the state system and was in keeping with the principles of microboard development and operation, so they selected the College of Direct Support (CDS), based upon its assessment of the quality and relevance of CDS. Enrollment in CDS is provided free of charge for all TMA microboards as part of their membership in the Association.
To read TMA’s Partner Profile, click HERE.
Our latest evaluation brief profiles how the CDS is being used in Mississippi by independent nurses who provide in-home respite and attendant care services within the state’s Home and Community Based Services waiver program for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. These nurses are using the CDS to receive required annual and quarterly training. Prior to this, the nurses received distance training.
A CDS core curriculum was customized to respond to the nurses’ health and medical expertise and content needs. The Evaluation Brief explains the process and details the results of a survey taken of the nurses to judge the effectiveness of the CDS.
Please click HERE to read the Evaluation Brief.
CDS Introduces Online Human Resources Learning Management System
Effective workforce development within human services organizations requires ongoing evaluation of organizational performance in recruitment, training, support and retention of direct support and supervisory personnel. Organizations that fail to do so experience higher turnover, more vacancies, staff dissatisfaction, lower staff motivation, and poorer outcomes for the individuals being supported.
Recognizing the importance of ongoing assessment in maintaining effective human resources practices, the College of Direct Support (CDS) has integrated a range of validated human resources assessment tools into the CDS platform. The CDS Human Resources (HR) tools included in the CDS package for participating agencies are: the Turnover/Vacancy Calculator, Training Experience Survey, Staff Satisfaction Survey, New Staff Survey, Supervisor Survey, Staff Exit Survey, and Organizational Commitment Survey. To learn more and view sample pages from these tools and the reports they generate, click here.
Two States Join CDS
The states of Connecticut and Tennessee are the latest to sign statewide contracts to begin using the College of Direct Support (CDS) as part of their workforce development efforts for Direct Support Professionals in 2007.
The CDS is now being used in 23 states by state-level departments, private provider agencies, community service boards, micro-boards, and individuals providing services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As of March 1, 2007, the CDS has 46,170 learners enrolled.
In addition to Tennessee and Connecticut, the CDS also is being used statewide in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota, South Dakota and Mississippi.
“Having the College of Direct Support in Tennessee will forever change the quality of services statewide,” said Kim Dean, Director of Staff Development and Training for the Tennessee Division of Mental Retardation Services. “Investing in the training and education of DSPs is the most important thing we can do to improve the professionalism of the workforce and thus improve the lives of those they serve.”
Dean said the CDS will be used across the state in approximately 225 agencies to train an estimated Direct Support staff of between 7,000 and 8,000. She explained that the CDS is first going to agencies that volunteer to begin the training soon, but eventually this training will be mandated.
Connecticut has approximately 3,000 DSPs working for the state, said John Tierney, the Connecticut DMR Curriculum Manager. He said the 165 private providers in the state employ between 5,000 and 7,500 DSPs.
“We will be working with department staff and private providers on implementation in the coming months,” said Charlan Corlies, Connecticut’s Director of Educational Support for the state Department of Mental Retardation (DMR). “The CDS will be available to DMR employees and employees hired directly by individuals and families in the Spring. Provider agencies will also be able to make the curriculum available to their employees by registering with DMR and CDS.”
The CDS curriculum is developed and updated by the University of Minnesota Research and Training Center on Community Living, the U.S. Center for Excellence on Community Integration. It currently includes 16 online training courses, each with multiple lessons and competency assessments, along with the four courses that make up the College of Frontline Supervision and Management. Additional training courses are in development.
If you are interested in the CDS and want additional information about the CDS, please contact Bill Tapp, National Director, at bill@collegeofdirectsupport.com or call him toll free at 1.877.353.2767.
SPEAK of Kentucky, Alaska Alliance Honored with Moving Mountains Awards
The Alaska Alliance for Direct Service Careers and SPEAK (Support Providing Employees Association of Kentucky) are the recipients of the 2007 Moving Mountains Awards from the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP).
The two organizations were honored during the recent Reinventing Quality Conference 2007 held in Charleston, S.C., in early March.
These awards are presented to organizations and agencies that have demonstrated best practices in direct support workforce development. They are awarded by the Research and Training Center (RTC) on Community Living at the University of Minnesota in partnership with NADSP.
The Alaska initiative began in 2000 and its mission is "to promote the development of a highly competent direct support workforce that supports people with disabilities in achieving their life goals." In presenting the award, Amy Hewitt of the RTC and the NADSP said the award "is for excellence in developing ongoing statewide initiatives that build direct support professional careers."
From that mission, the Alliance conducted a successful statewide media campaign, created a website to expand the recruitment pool of Direct Support Professionals (DSPs), developed a four-pronged effort to retain the best DSPs, and asked the Alaska legislature to educate lawmakers about the poor wages earned by DSPs and make DSPs aware of all benefits for which they are eligible.
In April 2005, the Alliance hosted a summit out of which came a revised strategic plan to address the issues of recruitment, retention, and career development of DSPs.
For more information on the Alaska project, contact Heidi Frost at heidi@uaa.alaska.edu or call 1.907.269.8999.
SPEAK is a DSP organization in the metro Louisville, KY., area that is guided by two lead agencies – The Council on Mental Retardation and Seven Counties Services, Inc.
DSPs are offered a variety of services by SPEAK, including pre-service orientation, access to a mentor/apprenticeship program, training and discussion opportunities and monetary and commemorative recognition for reaching tenure milestones. In less than two years, 220 DSP applicants have completed the pre-service orientation; 43 experienced DSP have become mentors; and turnover in partnering organizations has dropped from 62% to 27% in three years.
“We are honoring SPEAK for excellence in pre-service orientation, mentoring of new hires, its in-service training and promoting DSP recognition and professionalism,” Hewitt said.
For more information about SPEAK, visit its website at www.dspspeak.org or call Sandra Mlinarcik at 502.459.5292 (Ext. 7112) or email her at smlinarcik@sevencounties.org.
And the winner is...
SPEAK of Louisville, KY., was honored during the recent Reinventing Quality Conference 2007 in Charleston with the Moving Mountains Award from the National Association for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP). Amy Hewitt, left, of the University of Minnesota’s Research and Training Center, presented the award to SPEAK. Representing SPEAK were, second from left, Beth Richardson, CMR Leadership and Training Institute director; Alex Gibbons, senior therapeutic aide; and Jeff King, the Project’s Coordinator. At the far right is Dr. Sheryl Larson, on hand representing NADSP.
ANCOR Honors Kansas, Minnesota Groups With Community Builder Awards
The ANCOR Foundation’s prestigious 2007 Community Builder Awards were presented to the Options Day Service Program of Lenexa, Kansas, and to the Region Ten Quality Assurance Commission of Rochester, Minnesota.
The award recognizes exemplary and praiseworthy initiatives and programs that create inclusive communities and meaningful opportunities for people with disabilities. The recipients of the Community Builder Awards are selected annually from peer-nominated organizations that have taken the lead and achieved notable success in building communities of inclusion for all.
"The Community Builder Award recognizes exemplary efforts to create communities that provide the respect, opportunity, and support needed by people with disabilities to live as included and valued members," said Bill Tapp, ANCOR Foundation president who is the National Director of the College of Direct Support.
Both organizations were honored during ANCOR’s 2007 Management Practices Conference in San Diego, March 25-27.
The Options Day Service Program, part of Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, Inc., receives the award in the Provider category for implementing a creative day service program that fosters community inclusion. The program effectively connects 30 participants with meaningful volunteer, cultural and advocacy opportunities throughout Lenexa and in other parts of the state.
The Region Ten Quality Assurance Commission receives the award in the Community category. With little funding and a grassroots approach to effecting change, the Commission has engaged a broad range of community members (government, advocates, service providers, family members, service users) as participants and partners in improving services and supports for community members with disabilities.
For more information about the award, you can click on this link: www.ancor.org/foundation/community_builder_award.htm.
New Course on "Functional Assessment" to be Added
A new College of Direct Support (CDS) course on “Functional Assessment” will be rolled out in the summer of 2007 and will be available to all learners.
Specifically, this course deals with the reality that some people use disruptive or harmful (challenging) behaviors to meet their needs. They do this when they don’t know how to use other and better options. They do it when they lack motivation to use better options.
People in direct support roles need to be able to identify the reason a person uses such challenging behavior. When challenging behaviors are persistent, a formal structured process can be helpful to discovering the function of the behavior. This process is called Functional Assessment (FA).
This course explains the purpose and process of FA. It reviews common behavioral terms and principles of positive behavioral supports. It prepares learners to complete tasks related to FA. These tasks include completing structured observation and documentation; participating in or conducting interviews; reviewing records for critical information; and seeking or completing additional assessments.
Finally, information on the FA is used to create individualized behavior support plans. These plans help improve the person’s life and decrease their use of challenging behaviors.
CDS By The Numbers
The College of Direct Support (CDS) continues to grow.
As of March 1, 2007, the CDS had 46,170 enrolled learners in 328 facilities, a big increase over the Jan. 1, 2007 number of 41,539 enrolled learners. Current CDS learners have completed 372,430 lessons as of March 1st.
The CDS Australia now has 57 learners at new facilities working on 6,050 assigned lessons.
Eidelman Named to U.N. Expert Group
Dr. Steve Eidelman, the Robert Edelsohn Chair in Disabilities Studies at the University of Delaware, has been appointed to the United Nations Expert Group on Ensuring Access in Support of the Implementation on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This U.N. group began its work in February.
Eidelman was appointed to his position at the University of Delaware in 2005. He has bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from the University of Maryland. He also has a Master’s in Business Administration from Loyola College. Prior to his current position, he was the Executive Director of the Arc of the United States.
As a member of the U.N. panel, Eidelman will focus on deinstitutionalization and community inclusion of adults with intellectual disabilities, based on experiences in the United States, Canada and parts of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
DSP Fairness & Security Act of 2007
U.S. Reps Lois Capps (D-CA) and Lee Terry (R-NE) have reintroduced House Bill 1279, better known as the “Direct Support Professionals Fairness and Security Act of 2007.”
This bill, much like the one introduced last year, would give states a much-needed option to secure federal dollars for the direct support workforce. The bill is being pushed hard by ANCOR’s National Advocacy Campaign. In last year’s 109th Congress the bill won support from 86 members of the House of Representatives representing 33 states.
This bill would represent a critical first step towards reducing workforce turnover rates as high as 86% in residential settings while answering the growing demand for supports.
“We need to continue to tell Congress the realities of this crisis and the Congress needs to know that poor wage reimbursements jeopardize the quality of life for people with disabilities,” said Renee Pietrangelo, ANCOR’s Chief Executive Officer.
We urge you to check the ANCOR website at www.ancor.org and click on the ANCOR Action Center. Contact your member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor this bill. You will find a sample letter as well that you can send to your representative.
Mission Statement: The College of Direct Support is a learning gateway for contemporary best practices for Direct Support Professionals. By incorporating web-based learning, backed by nationally recognized curricula, the CDS is designed to help support a profession of direct care.
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