The employees that provide care to the individuals we serve are Direct Support Professionals (DSP’s) and all receive extensive training and mentoring before they are given the responsibility of caring for our participants. Beginning in the fall of 2009, in addition to our in house training, we began offering access to the College of Direct Support, a state-wide program, to all DSP’s. CDS is a web-based learning management system available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for Apple Patch employees to improve their skills in caring for people with disabilities. The CDS training curriculum is infused with a set of values and skill standards to train DSP’s and their supervisors and managers as they support people in community-based settings. Values such as inclusion, honored rights, leading self-determined lives and ethical, values-based treatment, among others, are at the core of CDS training and mission. These mirror the values of Apple Patch and this training has proved a valuable tool in improving the level of care of our participants and retention and job satisfaction of our staff.
We provide DSP Credentialing through the National Association for Direct Support Professionals.