Frontline Initiative: Advocacy and Voting
Speaking Up for Direct Support Professionals
Brian Ormond and a colleague at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau.
I'm a direct support professional. My elevator pitch is, “I help or assist people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities to live full lives.” People don't know the full depth of my work, but this gives them a good idea.
I got involved in this work kind of by accident many years ago. I was driving a cab in my small town. There was a program for cab vouchers for people from a home and community-based services program. So I got to meet some people from the program who rode in my cab. Through asking questions, I found out they were people with disabilities who were part of this program who were just living their lives. After cab driving, I did a couple other jobs. Then I thought, “I want to see what was going on with those community services for the people I drove around.” Honestly, I didn't understand the work at all. But I got hired and my life absolutely changed.
Now I’m 14–15 years into this career, if you can call it that. There's no specific career ladder that makes sense to me. What I found so far is that, if you want to make more money or if you want to have more impact, you have to move farther away from the people served. That’s the traditional career path. That bothers me tremendously because I am here for the people. So I've been stuck. Stuck with the same wage at the same job. I've maxed out what I can earn. I've been there so long that there isn't a higher category of DSP that they could promote me to in order to pay me more money or do anything different while still staying a DSP. So while I've been doing it for long enough to call it a career, on paper it's still the same job from the first day that I signed up. I'd like to see a world where DSPs could have a career, and make career-level wages, and stay close to the people we support. As it is now, if I want to step up, I have to step away. I'm trying to figure out how to step up and stay close.
Not everybody knows what a DSP is. If we can educate the public about who we are and what we really do, then the other things will be more likely to follow.
I also advocate on behalf of DSPs in my state with Alaska Alliance of Direct Support Professionals. It’s been quite a ride. It feels like a calling. One thing I focus on with AA DSP is respect and knowledge. Not everybody knows what a DSP is. If we can educate the public about who we are and what we really do, then the other things will be more likely to follow. That is going to take a lot of systems work because the system is built so that the DSPs don't go anywhere. It's a design flaw. DSPs don't have power—other people do. There's got to be a way to break something loose.
Maybe we have to get a little disruptive to make change. I think back to the folks who spoke up to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe it’s civil disobedience. Let’s sit in. It's powerful because you're doing nothing wrong. You are simply being seen and heard, which is what we've been demanding and the people we support have been demanding for 50 years. What if we planned it and sat in the Capitol for a week? Make a demand, and then sit there for as long as it takes? I think it's going to take something like that in order to work inside the system to make the incremental changes. Without disruption, I think we're going to wait for another 50 years for something to happen. The challenge here is organizing civil disobedience in a profession that's already stretched to the limit.
Brian Ormand speaking to protesters at the Alaska State Capitol.
We are professionals. But it's also personal because we are building relationships. That is the foundation of our job: building relationships. But we also need to live and support our own families. I was recently talking with someone I love about my medical insurance benefits, and my insurance isn't all that great. I know this person respects the career I’ve chosen, but they said, "Well, if you don't have very good insurance, you need a better job." That just stung me. I actually confronted the person. That makes it sound like what I do isn't valuable.
We have a lot of work to do to advance the profession. There is something to be said for, "Fake it ‘til you make it." As in, “You are a professional, act professional. Believe that you're a professional. Present yourself as a professional. Don't allow people to push you around. Don't allow people to take advantage of you. Have your boundaries. Know that you're valuable. Sell yourself. Practice, pretend, play.” You will show people around you who you believe you are. And for the DSP profession right now, I think believing in ourselves and understanding our worth can take us really far. But also take opportunities to speak up and get active.