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A Different Kind Of College
1. A Different Kind of College Page 1 of 3
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A Different Kind of College
July 01, 2006
By Jacqueline Durett
Bill Tapp had a vision: A better world for direct support professionals and those they care for. Now the national project
director of an education program for individuals such as residential counselors, employment specialists and family
advocates, he is on his way to making his dream a reality.
Already having worked at Sertoma Center for those with disabilities in Knoxville, Tenn., and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the
Tennessee Valley, Tapp was familiar with the employment challenges facing the direct support professional (DSP) field.
DSPs are those who provide guidance and support to those needing help to be self-sufficient in non-medical communities
(as opposed to nursing homes or assisted living facilities). Many work with those who have disabilities, but others work with
the aging or those with mental illnesses. However, with a turnover rate, Tapp says, of 90 percent, it's hard to keep people
long enough to train them. "The workforce was so unstable," he says of the conditions that compelled him to seek a way to
better train those in DSP roles. "I just realized that we needed to do something better."
The answer: CDS
The solution was a national Web-based training program now known as the College of Direct Support, which currently offers
22 courses in its learning management system. Now two-and-a-half years old, CDS aims to provide a variety of training
courses to a workforce facing shortages and an alarmingly high turnover rate. Tapp says it's vital these employees are
helped. "It is a critical workforce. It is a workforce that has not had much celebration," Tapp says, explaining how he came to
name the CDS. "We’re not a college, but we wanted people to have something to celebrate."
But there are obstacles in using traditional training methods, Tapp adds. Most employees have to work additional jobs to
support themselves, and that makes formal classroom instruction difficult. "While many states have developed wonderful
training curricula that are generally classroom-type training, it is very difficult to get the workforce that we’re able to garner
into that classroom," Tapp says.
And by helping DSPs, Tapp says, CDS is helping those the DSPs work to assist. “We’ve closed the institutions, we sent
[those with disabilities] out in community-based settings and we haven't done as well by creating a workforce as we should
have,” Tapp says. “And the training's been inconsistent, [and] people have dreamed up on their own what they thought a
curriculum should look like, and [it’s all] well and good, but it didn’t do anything to create a profession of doing this work.”
With a little help from some friends&hellip
A national board of about 50 editors who range from academics to members of national agencies develop the program’s
curriculum. The board typically develops four new courses annually, Tapp says. "It is an arduous undertaking," he adds,
describing a course currently under development concerning employment for people with disabilities. "Not everyone [with a
disability] has to work at the grocery store bagging groceries. Food, filth and dirt. They clean houses, they plant flowers,
they bag groceries. We’ve got to get out of that mindset. All of us, if we live long enough, will have a disability, and may
need help. This is all in an effort to bring us together as the common 'we' of how we can do this."
CDS’s courses are based on a set of competencies created by the Human Services Research Institute in Cambridge,
Mass., and the U.S. departments of labor and health and human services. These 12 core skill sets are ones, Tapp says,
"that you need to be able to possess and demonstrate to be able to properly support an individual with a disability in a
community-based setting."
The courses themselves are created by the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) at the University of
Minnesota. CEHD houses both the Research and Training Center on Community Living and the Institute on Community
Integration, both of which play a part in CDS's success. Prior to the creation of CDS, CEHD had been creating some CD-
based training for DSPs. Tapp reached out to CEHD because from all accounts he had heard it to be the authority on the
DSP sector and the people they serve.
The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals, also part of CEHD, developed the code of ethics for CDS.
http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=A+Different+Kind+of+Coll... 3/26/2010
2. A Different Kind of College Page 2 of 3
Additionally, MC Strategies, an Atlanta-based consultancy, provides the technical platform and assistance for CDS. Charlie
Lakin, director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living, says the prospective partnering with MC
Strategies, now a division of Elsevier, was one of the elements that drew the university into the project. Lakin says the
university brought both its reputation and experience with workforce development to the project, but all the players involved
were integral. "It was a really good marriage," Lakin says of the collaboration of MC Strategies, the CDS and the university.
Filling
a need
And that collaboration has resulted in a program that addresses the needs of 28,000 learners annually. It's a program, Tapp
says, that must rely heavily on technology because of the demographic it serves—younger employees who are used to
using computers in their daily lives. "The young people who come in have not learned with flip charts and smelly magic
markers. That is not new technology to a 20-something!" Tapp says. "They’ve learned by accessing information and
knowledge."
In addition, Tapp says, elements such as streaming video, personal stories and interactive activities keep learners
connected to each other. "Embedded in all the courses are activities to do. Mostly we find that men and women who do this
work are not scholarly types. It’s got to be engaging. It's got to be fun."
However, Tapp says, what's more important is the one-on-one interaction that CDS provides through its mentoring program.
"Adult learning without demonstration is not much learning. We're going to teach you interactively how to scramble an egg;
tomorrow with your mentor, eat breakfast together and don't cook that egg until you're together."
Many agencies that use CDS courses pair mentors from their own agency with a new hire, Tapp says. “People have really
rallied around us,” Lakin says. “We’ve been greatly blessed by some early adopters who took a chance on it.”
And others are noticing the results. CDS recently received the 2006 Media Award from the American Association of Mental
Retardation.
What's
next
Lakin says CDS has been as successful as it has because of all the outside support it has received. “We just had some
remarkable friends along the way who took a chance on something really new,” he says.
Additionally, he sees CDS as a chance to reach people beyond the university’s original scope. "This is an opportunity for us
to make available to tens of thousands, maybe someday hundreds of thousands of people, things that we have been
working on for many years here, and so it's a real opportunity for us to expand our influence greatly, and so we’re very
grateful for the opportunity to do this and for all the people who really made this possible."
As for course development, he says he sees CDS heading in the direction of supervision and management of community
agencies. Moreover, "We are being asked to broaden out of developmental disabilities and into a more generic presentation
of supporting people with disabilities [and] to develop some specialized courses in brain injuries and aging with disabilities."
Tapp has many hopes for not only CDS, but also the workforce it trains. "If we can slow [turnover] down, focus on hiring for
attitude and training for skills [and] we can give [DSPs] a skill set, then we’re not spending all our resources on that constant
churn of training."
He also sees it as a way to elevate the regard in which DSPs are held. "We hope," he says, "that it will transform the way
people are supported and [the way] the men and women who do the critical work are viewed."
Send story comments to edit@trainingmag.com.
Links referenced within this article
edit@trainingmag.com
http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/search/mailto:edit@trainingmag.com
Find this article at:
http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002914409
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![A Different Kind of College Page 1 of 3
Powered by
A Different Kind of College
July 01, 2006
By Jacqueline Durett
Bill Tapp had a vision: A better world for direct support professionals and those they care for. Now the national project
director of an education program for individuals such as residential counselors, employment specialists and family
advocates, he is on his way to making his dream a reality.
Already having worked at Sertoma Center for those with disabilities in Knoxville, Tenn., and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the
Tennessee Valley, Tapp was familiar with the employment challenges facing the direct support professional (DSP) field.
DSPs are those who provide guidance and support to those needing help to be self-sufficient in non-medical communities
(as opposed to nursing homes or assisted living facilities). Many work with those who have disabilities, but others work with
the aging or those with mental illnesses. However, with a turnover rate, Tapp says, of 90 percent, it's hard to keep people
long enough to train them. "The workforce was so unstable," he says of the conditions that compelled him to seek a way to
better train those in DSP roles. "I just realized that we needed to do something better."
The answer: CDS
The solution was a national Web-based training program now known as the College of Direct Support, which currently offers
22 courses in its learning management system. Now two-and-a-half years old, CDS aims to provide a variety of training
courses to a workforce facing shortages and an alarmingly high turnover rate. Tapp says it's vital these employees are
helped. "It is a critical workforce. It is a workforce that has not had much celebration," Tapp says, explaining how he came to
name the CDS. "We’re not a college, but we wanted people to have something to celebrate."
But there are obstacles in using traditional training methods, Tapp adds. Most employees have to work additional jobs to
support themselves, and that makes formal classroom instruction difficult. "While many states have developed wonderful
training curricula that are generally classroom-type training, it is very difficult to get the workforce that we’re able to garner
into that classroom," Tapp says.
And by helping DSPs, Tapp says, CDS is helping those the DSPs work to assist. “We’ve closed the institutions, we sent
[those with disabilities] out in community-based settings and we haven't done as well by creating a workforce as we should
have,” Tapp says. “And the training's been inconsistent, [and] people have dreamed up on their own what they thought a
curriculum should look like, and [it’s all] well and good, but it didn’t do anything to create a profession of doing this work.”
With a little help from some friends&hellip
A national board of about 50 editors who range from academics to members of national agencies develop the program’s
curriculum. The board typically develops four new courses annually, Tapp says. "It is an arduous undertaking," he adds,
describing a course currently under development concerning employment for people with disabilities. "Not everyone [with a
disability] has to work at the grocery store bagging groceries. Food, filth and dirt. They clean houses, they plant flowers,
they bag groceries. We’ve got to get out of that mindset. All of us, if we live long enough, will have a disability, and may
need help. This is all in an effort to bring us together as the common 'we' of how we can do this."
CDS’s courses are based on a set of competencies created by the Human Services Research Institute in Cambridge,
Mass., and the U.S. departments of labor and health and human services. These 12 core skill sets are ones, Tapp says,
"that you need to be able to possess and demonstrate to be able to properly support an individual with a disability in a
community-based setting."
The courses themselves are created by the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) at the University of
Minnesota. CEHD houses both the Research and Training Center on Community Living and the Institute on Community
Integration, both of which play a part in CDS's success. Prior to the creation of CDS, CEHD had been creating some CD-
based training for DSPs. Tapp reached out to CEHD because from all accounts he had heard it to be the authority on the
DSP sector and the people they serve.
The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals, also part of CEHD, developed the code of ethics for CDS.
http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=A+Different+Kind+of+Coll... 3/26/2010](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/adifferentkindofcollege-100326174817-phpapp02/85/A-Different-Kind-Of-College-1-320.jpg)
![A Different Kind of College Page 2 of 3
Additionally, MC Strategies, an Atlanta-based consultancy, provides the technical platform and assistance for CDS. Charlie
Lakin, director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living, says the prospective partnering with MC
Strategies, now a division of Elsevier, was one of the elements that drew the university into the project. Lakin says the
university brought both its reputation and experience with workforce development to the project, but all the players involved
were integral. "It was a really good marriage," Lakin says of the collaboration of MC Strategies, the CDS and the university.
Filling
a need
And that collaboration has resulted in a program that addresses the needs of 28,000 learners annually. It's a program, Tapp
says, that must rely heavily on technology because of the demographic it serves—younger employees who are used to
using computers in their daily lives. "The young people who come in have not learned with flip charts and smelly magic
markers. That is not new technology to a 20-something!" Tapp says. "They’ve learned by accessing information and
knowledge."
In addition, Tapp says, elements such as streaming video, personal stories and interactive activities keep learners
connected to each other. "Embedded in all the courses are activities to do. Mostly we find that men and women who do this
work are not scholarly types. It’s got to be engaging. It's got to be fun."
However, Tapp says, what's more important is the one-on-one interaction that CDS provides through its mentoring program.
"Adult learning without demonstration is not much learning. We're going to teach you interactively how to scramble an egg;
tomorrow with your mentor, eat breakfast together and don't cook that egg until you're together."
Many agencies that use CDS courses pair mentors from their own agency with a new hire, Tapp says. “People have really
rallied around us,” Lakin says. “We’ve been greatly blessed by some early adopters who took a chance on it.”
And others are noticing the results. CDS recently received the 2006 Media Award from the American Association of Mental
Retardation.
What's
next
Lakin says CDS has been as successful as it has because of all the outside support it has received. “We just had some
remarkable friends along the way who took a chance on something really new,” he says.
Additionally, he sees CDS as a chance to reach people beyond the university’s original scope. "This is an opportunity for us
to make available to tens of thousands, maybe someday hundreds of thousands of people, things that we have been
working on for many years here, and so it's a real opportunity for us to expand our influence greatly, and so we’re very
grateful for the opportunity to do this and for all the people who really made this possible."
As for course development, he says he sees CDS heading in the direction of supervision and management of community
agencies. Moreover, "We are being asked to broaden out of developmental disabilities and into a more generic presentation
of supporting people with disabilities [and] to develop some specialized courses in brain injuries and aging with disabilities."
Tapp has many hopes for not only CDS, but also the workforce it trains. "If we can slow [turnover] down, focus on hiring for
attitude and training for skills [and] we can give [DSPs] a skill set, then we’re not spending all our resources on that constant
churn of training."
He also sees it as a way to elevate the regard in which DSPs are held. "We hope," he says, "that it will transform the way
people are supported and [the way] the men and women who do the critical work are viewed."
Send story comments to edit@trainingmag.com.
Links referenced within this article
edit@trainingmag.com
http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/search/mailto:edit@trainingmag.com
Find this article at:
http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002914409
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