Dear ANCOR Members:
Sarah Meek on our GR team is engaged in conversations with key congressional offices about the importance of investing in the DSP workforce in the context of several legislative proposals around long-term funding for, and/or possible structural changes to, the HCBS program — including but not limited to proposals responding to President Biden’s call for Congress to invest $400B in the DSP workforce. We need to hear your experiences with how challenges recruiting and retaining DSPs — which we understand to be harder than they have been in years — are affecting the supports you offer and the well-being of individuals supported. While we welcome and will use feedback from all states, we are particularly targeting members of Congress from AZ, CA, DE, ME, NY, OR, and WV. Some of you in those states have already received direct emails from me on this topic — this is an expansion of that request, so you do not need to worry about this post if we are already corresponding.
For anyone interested in sharing their experiences:
- Please directly email Sarah Meek ([email protected]), with me cc’d ([email protected]).
- Please share as many details as possible, such as: the number of vacancies you have, the specific type of supports affected (e.g. day services, residential, employment, etc.) and how those supports are affected (e.g. having to consolidate individuals into one location, close lines of services, etc.), and last but not least, how that has affected the individuals you support.
We appreciate any time you can give us on this topic, and hope everyone has a good rest of the week.
Sincerely,
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Doris Parfaite-Claude
Federal Advocacy and Research Manager
American Network of Community Options and Resources
Alexandria VA
(703) 535-7850 (108)
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