The year 2021 has been difficult for most of the planet. A continued pandemic, political unrest, racial inequities, natural disasters and the list goes on.  For those of us in the intellectual and developmental disability community, we experienced the passing of a giant.  Our friend and colleague Dave Hingsburger, passed away earlier this year.  His loss is enormous, however, his legacy, his contributions to our knowledge base and his advocacy continue strong.  For 10 years Dave, along with co-founder, Angie Nethercott, published The International Journal for Direct Support Professionals.  Currently, there are over 10 years of back-issues and well over 100 volumes. These powerful and practical journal articles have guided and informed direct support professionals throughout the world in over 130 countries.

The National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) began a wonderful partnership to amplify The International Journal in 2014 via our, “Let’s Talk with Dave Hingsburger” monthly webinar series.  In these sessions, Dave would interview the many different authors of each month’s journal submission and discuss the articles in depth. These monthly webinars grew in popularity and continue to be an anticipated monthly event for the NADSP community and beyond.

When Dave passed away earlier this year, we were shocked, saddened and we deeply grieved. We still miss him terribly.  We also knew that if we dropped the ball on the webinar series and monthly journal he would be extremely unhappy.  Angie Nethercott, Chanelle Salonia and myself met and decided we will continue forward to honor his legacy.  Dave would have wanted that.

So, here we are at the end of 2021 and we are very pleased to offer you the last article Dave Hingsburger wrote for The International Journal for Direct Support Professionals.  This is vintage Hingsburger and you will most definitely enjoy, “The Zen of Tom”.  It is wonderful.

Lastly, we will not have a Let’s Talk this month and we will lovingly end 2021 with a tribute to Dave in a way that he would approve; we will read his words.

Happy holidays to you all.