Finding, Hiring and Managing a Direct Support Professional (DSP)
When living in the family home, many people with disabilities rely on assistance from their parents or other family members to carry out daily living activities, such as buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, and self-care. One important part of moving from the family home to living in the community is finding a reliable person or team of people to provide the assistance that family members provide when living at home.
The first thing to think about is how you are going to pay for support services. If you have a Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Waiver, waiver funds can be used to pay for a DSP.
There are two ways this can be done.
In the traditional approach, one uses waiver funds to pay a Medicaid-approved provider agency that provides support services. The agency is responsible for hiring and managing DSPs; the client may have little say in who provides services.
In the participant-directed approach, the person with a disability or their designated authorized representative acts as the employer and is responsible for hiring and training DSPs. The participant-directed approach allows choice over who provides services and the wages they are paid but requires considerable effort to manage the hiring and ongoing employment of DSPs.
More information about participant direction can be found at the Participant Directed Advocates of Georgia (PDAG) website. Of course, if you do not have an HCBS waiver or other public funding, you will have to pay out of pocket and, like with participant direction, will be responsible for hiring and managing DSPs.
So how does one find DSPs? We have prepared a step-by-step guide to help you through the process. There is also a collection of short videos from PDAG that provide insights on hiring and managing DSPs, including networking versus ads to find DSPs, the importance of background checks, interviewing, employee onboarding, and building trust with support staff.
