We offer online curricula for emerging professionals that support people with physical and mental disabilities. Covering a growing range of roles, from direct support to employment services, we connect workers to a standardized set of skills that celebrates their contribution to society.
A blog about helping guide the future
of support for life in community
When Kendra Majette is asked to summarize success as a Direct Support Professional (DSP), she says one word: “Trust.” Kendra, 32, has been a DSP at Ability Beyond Disability in Danbury, CT for over four years and is the subject of “The DSP Chronicles” for March-April from the College of Direct Support/DirectCourse (CDS).
The Elsevier Performance Manager: Core Development is an online educational and performance management tool to help administrators train and communicate with their employees.
This issue of the Admin Corner focuses on Classes and Events, a tool designed to track classroom training attendance and completions. Classes and Events helps you schedule and maximize every facet of classroom training, including classrooms and personnel (both learners and instructors),
automatically sends email enrollment confirmations, and alerts you to time/location conflicts. The Event Manager connects all your learning management system (LMS) classroom training across the entire organization.
A circulating draft of The Measure of a Society: Protection of Vulnerable Persons in Residential Facilities Against Abuse and Neglect, otherwise known as The Sundram Report (after principal author Clarence Sundram), has revealed conflicting regulations and unregulated staff expose nearly 300,000 “vulnerable people to needless risk of harm and complicate the challenge of teaching and training direct service staff.”
Opportunity Village is one of only 15 providers selected by the Iowa Association of Community Providers to participate in a two-year free trial of online training for direct support professionals.
The College of Direct Support is a set of web-based courses designed for direct support professionals (DSPs) and others who support individuals with disabilities. Its website says, “This flexible oursework is designed to connect them with a nationally recognized set of skills and a clear career path, and to celebrate their important role in helping the people they support toward developing richer, more fulfilling lives.”
The DirectCourse/College of Direct Support online curriculum is playing an important role in a unique three-year project in New Hampshire that could have long-term and transformational impacts on the direct care workforce in the state. The project is known as “DirectConnect.”
