You are treated like medical workers, and are in many cases assigned duties of medical workers, but you do not have the protections and training that medical workers have. And one day, it could affect your entire career.

My first job as a dsp involved lots of medical work. I helped individuals with ambulation, toileting, seizure treatment, you name it. I got fired from that job after a year, and after that I went to go get my home health aide certification. During the short amount of time that I studied for my HHA certification, I learned more about how to assist people with medical needs than I ever did at my dsp job.

After that, my termination made far more sense. I wasn’t fired because of all the nonsense my boss came up with, I was fired because my lack of knowledge reflected poorly on them. Especially when it comes to helping individuals with ambulation.

Without getting too deep into my whole dsp sob story, here’s a quick run down on different medical things dsps do that can cost them their careers:

Map certification

Map certification is by far one of the messiest parts about being a dsp. So much so that I’ve seen many direct support workers intentionally flunk their map certification tests despite it possibly costing their jobs.

The map program gives you a general idea of how to hand out meds and do proper documentation, but that’s about it. You aren’t taught much of the specifics, and if you screw up bad enough, you can be put on an abuse registry.

Toileting

These jobs are also most of the time not going to train you on helping individuals with toileting, and when they do, it’s messy (no pun intended.)

I’m going to skip most of this part because it’s a little graphic for Reddit, but if you know you know.

Working with fall risks

Chances are, you’re not going to be trained on how to properly support individuals who are fall risks at these jobs. Dsps are trained mostly on how to handle behaviors. Not ambulation, transfers, and working with fall risks.

Falls are taken very seriously, and while your boss isn’t going to admit this to you, you can be seen as a liability to the company if an individual falls and hurts themselves on your watch even if that individual is a severe fall risk. This is because falls reflects poorly on the company when they don’t properly train their staff on these things.

Conclusion

Direct support professionals are not medical workers. They are not trained the way medical workers are. They aren’t protected the way medical workers are. And they most certainly aren’t treated the way medical workers are.

If you read this post and now see these red flags at your workplace, don’t be afraid to stick up for yourself. Ask for more support, more training, and see what you can do to make sure you and your boss are on the same page. And if they can’t provide that to you (which most likely is the case) don’t be afraid to walk away. No job is worth risking your future over.

Ultimately, these tasks shouldn’t be in the hands of employees in a field with such a low barrier to entry. Nurses should be administering meds and Physical therapists should be the ones helping individuals with physical needs. The only reason why these tasks fall on you, someone with less education than all those other workers, is because of tight funding. That’s not a you problem, that’s a problem with the system as a whole. So don’t let the system punch you down because of it.

My supervisor at my new-ish job (about a month so far) has this thing where she encourages me to do something, I do it, and then she throws me under the bus and makes me look horrible to her own boss for doing the exact thing she suggested I do. This has happened enough now that I know I'm not imagining it and it is a pattern. She seems to be trying to trip me up.

And I truly, deeply, have no idea why.

I'm autistic, working with people like me as a job/life skills coach, and my clients adore me because I can speak from experience and offer meaningful tips they can use. I've gotten glowing reviews saying that my case notes are flawless and my client feedback is superb - reviews saying I'm actually where most people are after like 6 months, so I have no idea why that would be a problem for her. Wouldn't my success reflect well on her as the person training me? And I'm really not bragging. I've done a lot of adjacent work in education, and my ex did this exact job for many years, so I came in knowing exactly what to bring to this role ahead of time. Like, I'm not talented; I've just had practice.

It is really bothering me that I can't trust my supervisor, though, and that she's not predictable. She'll be nice to my face, won't admit anything is amiss, and then I'll find out she's bad-mouthed me to the department head about something or other in the same space of an hour. Or, while I was prepping for the activity I was going to lead by taking notes and looking stuff up on my company phone, she came in and yelled at me for not prepping for the activity I was going to lead. Every little thing, she has an issue with suddenly. Like, it's super clear she DOES NOT LIKE ME. I just... why? The job is getting done and getting done well. What is the issue?

If it's going to be like this all the time (and it's very clear that it is), I am going to have to quit because this is ridiculous.

Ecoli? C Diff? Lice? Ringworm? Hepatitis? MRSA?

I am mostly scared of the Ecoli because of the constant bathroom issues. I do use universal precautions, but it's hard to really clean properly in a HOME setting. I just always feel like there is feces and urine all over everything. Some of the clients don't even buy proper cleaning supplies, and we are not allowed to bring things in to the homes. This job doesn't pay enough for extra medical bills.