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Direct Support Professionals Week 2017

Posted on by Paige Mador

This week has been designated as National Direct Support Professional Recognition Week, and we would like to take a moment to recognize the dedication of our agency’s Direct Support Professionals.  DSPs are highly-trained, compassionate professionals who provide a vital contribution to their communities – supporting those who need assistance with essential daily needs.  The work they do allows our society’s most vulnerable members to live safe, fulfilling lives while being part of a community of their choice.

Direct Service Professionals support individuals with some of their most basic daily needs, such as preparation of meals, helping with medications, bathing, dressing, and transportation.  DSPs encourage meaningful community integration, help individuals maintain relationships with family and friends, and help identify recreational interests.  These staff members are not only daily caregivers – they assist with communication, medical care, and more.  At Venture, Direct Support Professionals are the lifeline of our agency, and we honor the work they do every day.

For more information about Direct Support Professionals Week nationwide, please visit ANCOR’s National Advocacy Campaign website.   For more information about local celebrations of Direct Support Professionals, check out The Caring Force.

Investing in our Employees

Posted on by Paige Mador

Venture is beginning its second year of the Mentor Program, a series designed to strengthen and empower our workforce through a group mentoring approach that offers the opportunity to learn from expert guest speakers, connect with agency leadership, and engage in meaningful discussion with peers.  Our employees are what make it possible to fulfill our mission, and we are committed to providing opportunities to staff members of all levels.

Participants will be able to fine-tune skills such as leadership, communication, conflict resolution, collaboration, networking, career development, and more.  The program seeks to provide insight about thriving within the human services sector and offers an opportunity for professional growth.  Our main goal is to invest in our employees, which will ultimately lead to the improvement of services for the individuals we support and contribute to the professionalization of the human services industry as a whole.  Additionally, each participant will be matched with a member of the agency’s senior leadership team that will offer support during the program.

We are proud to be hosting some very knowledgeable professionals from our community who will be speaking to the group about various topics.  This fall, we begin the program with a presentation by Christine Singer, who has years of experience in consulting and conducting workshops for companies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and human services providers.  She will offer insight to the group about communication and conflict management.  We are also excited to welcome Chris Tieri from Sturbridge’s own Idea Agency to talk about strategies for career advancement and personal brand development.

To date, three of last year’s Mentor Program participants have gone on to complete advanced degrees, four have been promoted at Venture, and two have experienced career advancement outside of the agency.  We are very proud of their success, and we look forward to helping this year’s participants develop their skills, gain confidence, and experience career growth as well.

Assistive Technology and Me

Posted on by Paige Mador

The following article was written by Andrew with help from the manager of his program.  Andrew lives in a Venture residence in Worcester County and wanted to share his experience with using assistive technology.

Every day, I rely on assistive technology.  I use an overhead barrier-free lift system to get out of bed in the morning.  I then use my customized wheelchair to successfully complete my morning routines before leaving for work.  To get to work, I ride in a customized van.  The van lifts me off the ground and into the van with staff assistance.   When I was younger, all of these things – getting out of bed, getting into my wheelchair, and getting into any mode of transportation – were done by people lifting me.  When people lift you, it can be really scary and sometimes I was injured.  I have not gotten injured since I started using mechanical lifts and I feel much more comfortable.

In April 2017, I wanted to begin doing some races, but wasn’t sure I would be able to.  However, I did not realize that specialized running wheelchairs are available.  The first time I saw the running chair, I was a bit nervous.  I thought, “It doesn’t look like any other chair I have ever used.”  It only has three wheels – two in the back and one in the front.

I was very lucky to meet the team of individuals who designed and built these running chairs, and they explained aerodynamics to me.  Until that moment, I had never realized the importance of science in assistive technology.

When I participate in races with the assistance of Team Hoyt New England runners, I am sitting in an aerodynamically correct position for both my physical needs and for the person who is pushing me – amazing!  Later this summer, I will be learning to sail on a sailboat that has been fitted with assistive lifts to get in and out of the boat, and a rudder that has been adapted for me to use.  I can’t wait… And I am no longer scared of trying any new assistive technology!

Is this the Final Assault on Medicaid?

Posted on by Paige Mador

By Mike Hyland, President and CEO

With the year half over already, the U.S. Senate is working furiously to pass a bill that overhauls the Affordable Care Act before Congress recesses for the July 4th holiday.  A bill written in complete secrecy by just 13 members of the 100-member Senate is finally making its way to all of the people who will ultimately vote on it next week and, like the bill passed by the House of Representatives last month, the details are alarming.

Of paramount concern is the Senate’s plan to mirror the bill passed by the House that significantly cut Medicaid over a ten-year period, while also converting it to a block grant.  It is not just an assault on Medicaid, but an unequivocal betrayal of people with developmental disabilities and the hard-working men and women who support them in the community.  With Governor Baker already asserting that this legislation will cost Massachusetts billions if enacted, the Commonwealth will find itself in a position where draconian cuts to basic supports will be inevitable.  The human service industry already struggles to hire people, and will now be gutted even further.  The funds available to increase wages will disappear.  There have been months of advocacy that have taken place to educate the White House and Congress about what these cuts will do to people with disabilities, as well as the professionals dedicated to helping them.  Both the proposed Senate and House bills represent that the people who wrote them and voted for them just don’t care.  They know that services for people with disabilities will be cut and that pay for direct care professionals will freeze. Their actions prove they truly don’t give a damn.  How did we allow our society to get here?  If there is one thing that elected officials should be able to agree upon, it is the duty to protect people with disabilities and the too-long-taken-for-granted workforce that helps them.  Instead, President Trump and leadership in the House and Senate have chosen to abandon them and dedicate dollars that currently support these groups to the most affluent in our country via a tax cut.  Perhaps worst of all, these actions come following a promise from candidates that, if elected, they would protect Medicaid and the disabled.  Obviously, it was a lie from the start.

There is still a process that these bills must go through before becoming law.  Essentially, the House and the Senate must find a way to reconcile the two bills into one and send it to the White House to be signed.  It is my hope that people will flood lawmakers like never before with phone calls and emails that decry this horrific dismissal of people in need.  We should inundate our lawmakers with the notion that people with disabilities have the right to live safely in local communities.  We must also remember the professionals who are dedicated to supporting them.  So many people have worked way too hard, for far too long, under grueling circumstances to be so blithely abandoned in favor of millionaires and stubborn ideology.  Gandhi once said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members”.  If one believes this, it would seem that we are dangerously close to failing the test.

Why Medicaid Has to Survive

Posted on by Paige Mador

By Mike Hyland, President and CEO

The inexplicable assault on Medicaid continues in the Trump administration and there is good reason for people to worry about it.  The President’s stated plan to gut Medicaid by almost a trillion dollars over a ten year period, while cutting taxes for millionaires, will eviscerate crucial programs that allow people with developmental disabilities to live safe and meaningful lives in community-based settings.  We should all wonder aloud why this population of marginalized people should be so brazenly abandoned.  After we wonder about it, we should be appalled.  We should also be gravely concerned for another forgotten group: the dedicated workforce of professionals who support these people in the community.

For too long already, we have allowed people who do the very difficult work of direct care to be almost entirely neglected by national policy makers.  Advocacy to guarantee legitimately livable wages and increases, affordable health care, access to higher education and professional development too often fall on deaf ears in Washington D.C.  Publicly, officials praise the incredible work being done by so many committed professionals.  Privately, they do little to support this workforce.  Now, astonishingly, the Trump administration is dismissing these professionals and the value of their skills by proposing a budget that will make it virtually impossible for them to get paid appropriately for the vital work they do every day.

According to the Baker administration, a cut of this magnitude would cost Massachusetts approximately $1.5 billion in the first year alone.  Obviously, this kind of cut cannot be absorbed under current revenue collections, meaning that the state will have to significantly cut programs for developmentally disabled people or significantly raise taxes or, more likely, do both.  The needs of an already underpaid workforce will certainly not be prioritized in state contracts under such conditions because the money won’t be there.  We already have a genuine workforce crisis in the field of human services in this country.  By obliterating the funding mechanism that pays direct care professionals, the Trump White House is saying loud and clear that the new administration values the wealthy above the disabled and those who do so much to help them.  How sad that after so many years of advances in overcoming disabilities, stigma, bullying, isolation, and discrimination, the disability community now faces its greatest threat from people elected to help them.  How sad that the dedicated people who work tirelessly to this day to make these advances possible stand to be abandoned by those who once promised unequivocally not to cut Medicaid.

It is totally irrelevant where the plans to cut Medicaid by such a staggering amount originate.  The position, the political party, the individual, or the special interest group that encourages such devastation doesn’t matter.  Anyone who plans to do harm to so many must always be challenged and educated to understand what Medicaid truly does.  Such massive cuts as currently planned dangerously expose people who need help through no fault of their own.  Just as troubling, they signal a total dismissal of the very real needs of the many professionals who already sacrifice so much to help others.  These amazing men and women deserve much, much better than that.

Announcing ADDP Awards for Venture Employees

Posted on by Paige Mador

Venture Community Services is proud to announce that two dedicated employees received awards at this year’s ADDP Conference and Expo on May 4 at the DCU Center in Worcester. Annmarie Addesa has won the Direct Support Professional Award for the Central region and Lindsey Dezotell was presented with the Continuing Education Scholarship Award.

Annmarie offers dignity and respect to the individuals she supports in her professional role at Venture Community Services. She follows procedures and policies while still paying close attention to the safety, health and happiness of the individuals she supports.  She works with the community to create new opportunities and groups for individuals both in her house and throughout the agency.  Her Splash Day at the Attleboro Art Museum allowed individuals from several Venture homes to gather and create expressive art. She is a standout during these events, making sure everyone is involved and enjoying their time with others.  Annmarie is always supportive of individuals served while ensuring that they are also able to be as independent as possible. “Annmarie is an example of everything this field needs in the means of direct care staff,” said Rahjene Berrio, House Manager at Venture Community Services. “She is caring, creative and supportive of all individuals she supports and proves time and time again her commitment to providing them with the opportunity to live the most fulfilling life possible.”

Lindsey has advanced from Residential Counselor to her current position as Staff Trainer, where she guides new staff and continues to encourage them in their new roles. Lindsey also is a full-time student at Bay Path University, where she pursuing a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership. She is passionate about investing in families and working with people with disabilities. “In her entry role, as a 19-year-old, Lindsey quickly demonstrated a hunger to gain more knowledge about bettering the lives of the people around her,” said Walter J. Davenport, Training Coordinator at Venture Community Services. “Because of her willingness to share her own learning disability, Lindsey was able to support me in creating a work environment that allowed team members to become more sensitive to fellow co-workers with disabilities, as well as the disabilities of the people we were supporting”.

The Framingham-based Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers is committed to ensuring, strengthening and promoting the viability of community-based organizations that support people with developmental disabilities and their families.