Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) are essential to the Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities Industry. Yet our industry is in a dire situation, as there are not enough DSPs to meet current or future demands.
ANCOR (American Network of Community Options and Resources) released a report in 2023 on this issue:
- 95% of respondents indicated they had experienced moderate or severe staffing shortages in the past year.
- More than half (54%) of respondents indicated they deliver services in an area where few or no other providers deliver similar services.
- More than three-fourths (77%) of respondents reported turning away new referrals in the past year due to ongoing staffing shortages.
- 72% of respondents reported that they had experienced difficulties adhering to established quality standards due to ongoing staffing challenges.
- Of those respondents that reported offering case management services, fully three-fourths indicated they had experienced difficulties connecting people with services due to a lack of available providers.*
For Arkansas, DDPA surveyed affiliated providers and learned the following:
- Providers need to hire over 400 part-time and ~50 full-time DSPs to meet existing waiver client needs.
- 39% of providers said that they have a waiver client wait list for expanding their service.
- 27% of providers said that they are turning away new waiver clients due to a lack of DSPs.

What is a PASSE?
PASSE (Provider-Led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity) is how our state handles Medicaid funding for eligible individuals.
There are several factors why this is happening:
- Low pay – most DSPs earn $11-13/hour . They cannot compete with other jobs that start at $15+/hr.
- Inflation – Wages are not keeping up with the cost of living, and people cannot live comfortably on DSP paychecks and expected work hours
- High turnover rate – entry level jobs with low pay are often difficult to staff and maintain for long periods of time due to a lack of employee satisfaction or new, more lucrative opportunities
- Drug tests/background checks/driving records – these requirements eliminate a lot of potential employees by placing undue burdens on entry-level workers
- Paperwork – DSP work requires more documentation than other regular jobs at a similar wage
In short: providers need to be able to pay more to attract, train, and maintain workers who are invested in their work, and feel that their work is invested in them.
Learn more in the following video: