What is a DSP?

What is a Direct Support Professional?

Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Outside of immediate family, DSPs are often the most important person in someone with an IDD’s life.

These professionals come alongside someone with an IDD to help them live their most independent lives.

The DSP role is complex. In addition to providing the most basic supports, DSPs also:

• Enhance the ability of the peopel they supports to lead independent lives by providing the support and information necessary to build self-esteem, and assertiveness; and to make decisions
• Be knowledgeable about the range of effective communication strategies and skills necessary to establish a collaborative relationship with the person they support
• Understand formal and informal assessment practices to respond to the needs, desires and interests
• Be skilled in identifying and gaining access to the formal and informal supports available in the community
• Facilitate services through participatory planning techniques in a collaborative and expeditious manner
• Match specific supports and interventions to the unique needs of the individual and recognize the importance of friends, family and community relationships
• Understand the diverse challenges facing the individuals they support (e.g., human rights, legal, administrative and financial) and be able to identify and use effective advocacy strategies to overcome such challenges
• Mobilize resources necessary to assist an individual with their career and educational goals
• Knowledge of crisis prevention, intervention and resolution techniques and match such techniques to the circumstances and the individual
• Support the individual in the development of friendships and other relationships
• Provide person-centered supports
• Promote health and wellness