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A Call to Exemplary Service

by Marianne Taylor

Some scientists believe that the earth is continually engaged in an ecological balancing act understood as the Gaea principle (Gaea for “earth” after the Greek Goddess). They see Gaea as a quality that provides nature with the ability to counterbalance life-threatening trends, such as global warming, through the initiation of self-correcting, natural healing processes often unknown to observers.

I think that the analog to the Gaea principle in the human services world is the belief that the basic goodness and warmth of people – individually and together as communities – will ultimately create a world that welcomes and supports people with disabilities. But, just as Gaea cannot maintain a healthful ecological balance without help, most people who work in the human services or care for people who rely on human services, understand that full participation does not just happen without professional and personal action. Mediating structures are essential to ensure the full participation of people with disabilities in the “good life” that is characterized, among other things, by developing friendships, finding satisfying work or other daily activity, choosing one’s own path, and giving to others.

Among the most important mediating structures in the lives of people with developmental disabilities are the direct support staff who, next to family and friends, are the ones that people most often walk with, talk with, laugh and cry with along the hard road of life. They are teachers, mentors, coaches, and networkers and, all too often, the only friends of the people they support. It is an enormous responsibility to fill any one of these jobs, let alone all of them.

Despite the depth and demands of this role, our field has done little beyond basic training to prepare and sustain the direct support practitioners in their jobs and help them grow in a meaningful career path. Training that does exist is not typically organized into programs offering a sequenced, coordinated approach to learning and usually does not offer the learner the kinds of awards that carry weight and confer status and value in our society such as certificates, credits or degrees. Direct service practitioners have been among the most underpaid workers in the United States, signifying a lack of public awareness and regard for their work and making it next to impossible for practitioners to make a commitment to a direct service career.

Crafting the Standards

One recent response to the challenge of strengthening our direct support work-force was the development of the Community Support Skill Standards (CSSS) (Taylor, Bradley & Warren, 1996) and the various activities that have emerged from the national, collaborative effort to build the standards. The CSSS are a comprehensive set of practice guidelines for community-based human service practitioners in direct service roles. They are a tool that can be used by employers, educators, and others for a variety of staff preparation and development purposes, including the following:

• Conducting training needs assessments for current personnel.
• Assessing strengths and weaknesses of current orientation and training programs.
• Encouraging post-secondary educational programs to modify curricula to be more relevant to contemporary community services.
• Helping local secondary schools to develop school-to-work opportunities in human services.
• Developing job descriptions and job performance reviews for direct support practitioners.

Developed and validated by a collaborative national partnership of practitioners, families, consumers, educators, employers, and policymakers throughout the United States, the CSSS were shaped by the consensus of major stakeholders. The CSSS represent the first time that accepted occupational analysis and validation methods have been used to develop a comprehensive and progressive vision of direct service practice at the national level. By identifying the skill and knowledge sets, ethical posture, and attributes associated with effectiveness in community service environments, the CSSS provide the critical elements necessary for the direct support role to be viewed as a profession.

The CSSS provide descriptions of work approaches arranged in 12 broad domains of human service practice called competency areas (among these are participant empowerment, communication, community living skills, advocacy). The practitioner role captured in the CSSS incorporates important characteristics of work as it is defined in a post-industrial society. These standards describe a worker who is multi-skilled and, through proper preparation and an accommodating work culture, is empowered to make decisions alone and in teams and to work in partnership with participants and their families. Challenged to solve complex problems and to exercise creativity, the direct support practitioner in these standards assumes personal responsibility for professional growth and development.

The Spirit of the CSSS

Employers, teachers, and others using these standards as a foundation for employee development or instructional design should consider the philosophical tenets they embrace. Throughout the standards development phase, project staff devised approaches to ensure that the CSSS acknowledge the shared values that enable us to make a positive difference in people’s lives, and reflect and operationalize the imperatives of progressive, contemporary community-based services (Bradley & Knoll, 1990), including the following:

• Focus on participant’s strengths, preferences and life goals in the context of family, friends and community.
• Emphasis on the respectful, working partnership between the practitioner and the participant and the recognition of participant’s strengths, gifts and potential.
• View of the practitioner as a knowledgeable, creative, empowered supporter and team member in all aspects of participant support and organizational life.
• Creation of a foundation of support that incorporates and extends a participant’s natural support network.
• Emphasis on participant empowerment and self-direction.
• Emphasis on the individualization of supports and the flexible organization of resources to be continually responsive to changing life concerns.

The standards must therefore be understood as a complex composite of practitioner skills, attitudes, knowledge and values that incorporate these and other important enabling values and themes of contemporary human service support. It is also important to understand that the standards go far beyond minimum expectations. They depict the practices and knowledge base of an exemplary practitioner who has substantial experience in the role.

Impact of the Standards

One of the most exciting parts of the CSSS project has been talking with workers, consumers, families, employers, and others who care deeply about what is happening to the direct support workforce and who are joining together to promote a national agenda to meet the significant workforce development challenges described above. For example, the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals has many members who actively participated in the CSSS project and are carrying forward a strategic agenda for human service workforce development, including enhancing public awareness and regard for this role and planning the development of a national credential based on the CSSS and other relevant criteria.

The CSSS have provided an impetus for large public employers, such as the Missouri Division of Mental Health, to undertake a comprehensive plan to upgrade both expectations and salaries using a competency-based approach. It is also encouraging to see employers such as Vinfen Corporation, a large provider in Massachusetts; Dungarvin, Inc. with services in 13 states; and Lifelinks, a smaller provider in Lowell, Massachusetts, who are using the standards as a key component in comprehensive employee development programs.

The standards are also providing an important means of communicating with educators, who are the critical link to introducing young people to careers in human services. It is a great loss to the field that few high schools offer students an introduction to human service careers (yet you can be certified to cut hair, fix cars etc.). This is changing as the National Association of Family and Consumer Educators has recently embraced the CSSS and are planning to use them to re-shape curricula and programs that will offer students greater access to introductory experiences in human services. At the post-secondary level we are seeing the development of programs keyed to the standards that result in highly proficient and valuable practitioners. The best example of this is the Community Supports Program offered in many Minnesota technical colleges. This program offers an articulated series of awards including a core certificate (15 credits), a specialized diploma, and an Associate’s degree. Such well-planned programs offer interested people clearly defined and manageable steps to higher education and longer careers in human services – a “win-win” situation. Creating a portrait that calls others to the honorable practice and spirit of the direct support role is ultimately the most important contribution of these standards. Unless we introduce the rewards of community support work to others, who will be there to support us when we need them? Unless we know what we are calling people to, how will they answer the call?

References:

Bradley, V.J., and Knoll, J.A. (1990). Shifting paradigms in services for people with developmental disabilities. Cambridge, MA: Human Services Research Institute.

Taylor, M., Bradley, V., and Warren, J. (Eds.) (1996). The Community Support Skill Standards: Tools for managing change and achieving outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Human Services Research Institute.

Marianne Taylor is Project Director with the Community Support Skills Standards Project, Human Services Research Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She may be reached at 617/876-0426, ext. 330.

Sidebar: Community Support Skill Standards Competency Areas

These competency areas describe the broad knowledge and skill sets required of competent direct support staff. Within each competency area several specific skill standards and concrete work activities also are identified.

• Participant Empowerment. The competent direct support staff (DSS) enhances the ability of the participant to lead a self-determining life by providing support and information to build self-esteem and assertiveness and to make decisions. Topics: self-determination; empowerment; consumer-driven services; self-advocacy; human, legal and civil rights; decision-making.
• Communication. The DSS should be knowledgeable about the range of effective communication and basic counseling strategies and skills necessary to establish a collaborative relationship with the participant. Topics: communication skills, augmentative and alternative communication, acronyms and terms used within the field, basic supportive counseling skills.
• Assessment. The DSS should be knowledgeable about formal and informal assessment practices in order to respond to the needs, desires, and interests of participants. Topics: assessment strategies and processes; conducting assessments; identifying preferences, capabilities, and needs of participants; using assessment tools; disseminating findings to the participant.
• Community and Service Networking. The DSS should be knowledgeable about the formal and informal supports available in his or her community and skilled in assisting the participant to identify and gain access to such supports. Topics: making community connections, building support networks, identifying available community resources, outreach.
• Facilitation of Services. The DSS is knowledgeable about a range of participatory planning techniques and is skilled in implementing plans in a collaborative and expeditious manner. Topics: collaborative relationships, ethical standards of practice, individualized plans, strategies to achieve participant outcomes, developing successful program plans.
• Community Living and Supports. The DSS has the ability to match specific supports and interventions to the unique needs of individual participants and recognizes the importance of friends, family, and community relationships. Topics: human development; sexuality; health; grooming; toileting; personal management; household management; nutrition and meal planning; laundry; transportation; adaptive equipment; physical, occupational and communication therapy intervention; development of friendships and socialization; consumer-driven recruitment; training of service providers.
• Education, Training, and Self-Development. The DSS should be able to identify areas for self-improvement, pursue necessary educational/training resources, and share knowledge with others. Topics: completing required/mandated training, professional development, community outreach.
• Advocacy. The DSS should be knowledgeable about the diverse challenges facing participants (e.g., human rights, legal rights, administrative and financial issues) and should be able to identify and use effective advocacy strategies to overcome such challenges. Topics: identifying advocacy issues, laws, services, and community resources for people with disabilities; barriers to service delivery; negotiation.
• Vocational, Educational, and Career Support. The DSS should be knowledgeable about the career- and education-related concerns of the participant and should be able to mobilize the resources and support necessary to assist the participant to reach his or her goals. Topics: vocational assessment, opportunities for career growth and advancement, marketing skills, environmental adaptations, job interviewing, job retention, vocational services.
• Crisis Intervention. The DSS should be knowledgeable about crisis intervention and resolution techniques and match such techniques to particular circumstances and individuals. Topics: crisis intervention strategies, conflict resolution, de-escalation, environmental adaptations.
• Organizational Participation. The DSS is familiar with the mission and practices of the support organization and participates in the life of the organization. Topics: program evaluation, organizational structure and design, cultural sensitivity, peer support, organizational development and budgetary issues.
• Documentation. The DSS is aware of the requirements for documentation in the organization and is able to manage the requirements efficiently. Topics: data collection and analysis, confidentiality, ethical practice, documentation strategies.

For additional information on the Community Support Skill Standards contact Marianne Taylor, Human Services Research Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 617/876-0426. Or see Taylor, M., Bradley, V., & Warren, R. (1996). The Community Support Skill Standards: Tools for managing change and achieving outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Human Services Research Institute.

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Resources: Web Sites Related to Direct Support Workforce Development

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Citation: Gaylord, V., Hewitt, A., & Larson, S. (1998). Impact: Feature Issue on Direct Support Workforce Development, 10(4) [online]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration. Available from http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/104/.

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