What is a DSP?
Learn more about this essential part of our workforce

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.
Girl Having Individual Art Therapy Class

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.