Articles

College of Direct Support

Overview

New York Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation serves as an administrator for the College of Direct Support (CDS), offering agencies the opportunity to enroll direct support professionals, front-line supervisors and other agency staff in the college at a reduced tuition rate. This opportunity offers cost-effective, quality, cutting-edge, in-house training for direct support professionals and their supervisors. 

The CDS is a learning gateway for contemporary best practices in the support of individuals with developmental and other disabilities. It is made possible through the collaboration of the Research and Training Center on Community Living at the University of Minnesota (RTC) and Elsevier.

Incorporating a nationally recognized curriculum with web-based learning, the CDS is designed to promote the profession of direct support by offering direct support professionals and their supervisors the opportunity to grow in their knowledge and practice of the profession. As a web-based learning management system, it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, enabling learners to hone their skills at times, locations, and a pace convenient to them and their busy schedules.

The Partnership

The successful relationship between CDS, the NY Alliance and your agency is critical to a successful learning experience. For its part, CDS is dedicated to providing agencies with cutting-edge content and technology. And, NY Alliance is dedicated to enabling agencies to access that content and technology in a cost effective and efficient way. 

However, agencies are critical to their learners' success by supporting them in a variety of ways. Evaluations conducted by NY Alliance and CDS show that agencies with high learner completion rates actively recognize and support learners in different ways. These include:

• leading by example and participating in the CDS themselves;
• creating support groups of staff who have completed the CDS to assist or mentor new learners;
• planning activities associated with course work which facilitate the implementation of what was learned; 
• providing staff with computer access and suppport, as many staff may not have home computers or may not be computer savvy (one agency offered learners the opportunity to purchase laptops, at the agency's cost, with a repayment plan of up to 18 months); 
• and celebrating success by hosting "graduation" parties or sending out special notes and announcements about staff who have completed the course of study.

Some agencies also tie completion of course work with salary adjustments and/or promotional opportunities.

More Information: Agencies that provide services and supports in New York State should be particularly pleased with the opportunity to participate in the College of Direct Support, since the content of the CDS training aligns with the state required core competency implementations criteria (OPWDD Administrative Memorandum #2014-03).

Curricula & How It Works

To learn more about the latest semester of the College of Direct Support, click here.

Questions? Contact Lisa Mount at [email protected] or 518-795-3590.