GOOD CHEER: DSPs are critically important to successful holiday engagement between people with disabilities, their families and the people in their communities.
BY JOHN RAFFAELE, MSW
There are joyful elements to the holiday season as well as stressful aspects for anyone celebrating this season. People who have family members or children with disabilities often see the holiday season with a unique set of lenses. Holiday parties and events can be filled with memory-making excitement. They can also easily slip into negative territory and sometimes even turn into disaster. When family members rely on the services of direct support professionals, there can often be more positive outcomes and joyful memories than negative ones.
Competent direct support professionals (DSPs) can wonderfully assist people with disabilities in navigating the loud, busy and often unpredictable holiday events, and the many moments of revelry during the season of lights. Interactions with lots more people than usual is common during this season. Depending on the nature of a loved one's intellectual or physical disability, this may create high levels of stress for them and subsequently the family. Ultimately, to those families that entrust their loved ones with skilled direct support professionals they can be confident that a good time will be more than likely.
Holiday time is people time. The holidays offer the opportunity to meet new people and create new relationships, as well as to provide opportunities to reconnect with old friends and family in celebration of these relationships. Direct support professionals have very specific skills associated with helping those they support in building and maintaining relation ships. Connecting these skills to the things that take place in and around the holiday season, they are critically important to successful holiday engagement between people with disabilities, their families and the people in their communities. The competent direct support professional assists the individual as needed in planning for activities and events (e.g., making reservation, support needs, money, materials, accessibility). He/she assists the individual in arranging transportation, when necessary, to visit family or friends and attend holiday events. They encourage and assist the individual as needed in facilitating friendships and peer interactions, commu nicating with parents, family and friends, and they understand the amount and type of support the person they are working with needs for each event. A talented direct support professional provides incentive or motivation for involvement in their communities and at family events. They assist the individual they support as needed in getting to know and interact with the people that are most important to them.
If direct support professionals are performing these tasks and skills well, it will allow family members to know that their child or family member will likely have good holiday memories. Too often exceptional parents and family members face holidays with stress and anxiety, wanting only the best for their family. With the support and assistance of skilled professionals there can be peace and joy in the season of lights, and family members can rest easy and focus on the spirit of the holiday—which is to reflect on the relationships and friendships that make our human life so precious.
The National Alliance for Direct Support Professional encourages all direct support professionals to utilize the NADSP Code of Ethics and the NADSP Competency areas as the standard for exceptional performance in the support of people with disabilities. The Board and Staff at the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals wish all a safe and joyous holiday season.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Raffaele MSW, is Director of Educational Services, National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals, based in Albany, NY. Visit nadsp.org