Before the year wraps up, we just wanted to thank our partners and members for a record breaking year here at the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals. In the post below, we share a few exciting accomplishments from our continued work to support our mission.

As COVID-19 cases spike and the pandemic continues to impact direct support professionals and the people they support, provider organizations are acknowledging the important work of DSPs now more than ever. NADSP has even experienced this, as a record-breaking number of 40 new organizational members have joined NADSP this year to elevate the status of DSPs.

When we moved our training to an online format, over 6,000 registered with us to take part in over 200 hours of virtual content and training. In previous years, we’ve reached hundreds of people through in person travel but it’s been exciting to calculate how far our reach has gone in the virtual world.

More organizations across North America this year have invested in the NADSP E-Badge Academy, recognizing direct support professionals with credit for their competency. As it stands now over 1000 certifications have been achieved and we are closing in on over 30,000 submissions and over 21,000 badges awarded.

Though it can feel can be difficult to get excited about celebrating anything as the pandemic looms. We wanted to share our appreciation to our partners and direct support professionals for their support this year. Once again, this invisible workforce will be providing invaluable work to the people they support and their community.

From the entire team at NADSP, we are grateful for your continued support and wish you a happy, healthy new year.