Special Issue: From the Front Lines: The Direct Support Workforce Development and Reality

Abstract

In this special issue we focus on topics related to the stability of the direct support workforce. In 2016, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) and the National Alliance of Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) developed a joint position statement regarding the direct support professional (DSP) workforce. Part of this statement reads:Ameliorating barriers that impact the recruitment, undesirable working conditions, and attrition of DSPs could not be truer today, as the COVID-19 pandemic created enormous challenges in addressing the needs of DSP workers and, some may argue and as projected in the joint statement, turned the clock back on efforts to establish effective systems for DSP workers. Therefore, the purpose of this first of a two-part special issue is to facilitate conversation about factors affecting DSPs who serve people with IDD.As you will discover in the collection of articles in this issue, some difficulties of the DSP workforce existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (see Carter et al.; Layden et al.), and some difficulties became relevant during the pandemic (see Hall et al.). Other articles discuss promising supports for DSP workers that stem from the pandemic (see Ham et al.; Rodriguez et al.). Our hope is that this collection of articles will shape practice and policy that will be widely adopted to improve working conditions and reduce the turnover of DSP workers and move us closer to realizing the goals adopted by AAIDD and NADSP in their cause to support the DSP workforce.