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Educating a workforce of Direct Support Professionals to support individuals with disabilities is what we do – “Building Careers, Supporting Lives.” Our curriculum, values and mission are based on the premise that all people should live life to its fullest in community-based settings.

  

 

World Bicycle Relief
Posted September 30, 2008
 
Here's a simple idea making a big difference. World Bicycle Relief has donated 24,000 bicycles to HIV/AIDS caregivers in Zambia so that they can better care for their clients. For one man, this decreased his trip to see one of his clients from 5 hours to 40 minutes.


We Put the P in DSP
Posted September 30, 2008
 
ANCOR(American Network of Community Options and Resources) recently sponsored a DSP Online TV video Contest in an effort to give DSP's an opportunity to tell their own stories as well as bring awareness to workforce wage issues. The video featured here was the grand prize winner of over 30 videos submitted. It was created by Ben Leadbetter from RHD-RI in Pawtucket, RI


Offense Taken: A Documentary About How One Community Responded to the R Word.
Posted September 22, 2008
 

In the spring of 2007, when a Minneapolis theater company put on a show titled “Rise of the Celebretards,” people with disabilities and their allies took action. “Offense Taken” documents this community’s organized response to the play title and to the public use of the “R” word (“retard”).

By lifting up the voices of a broad range of citizens—people with disabilities, allies, educators, artists, and neutral theatergoers—the documentary also serves as a springboard for discussion about language: “Does artistic freedom trump human rights?”

With the release of this film, a coalition of Minnesota organizations and individuals is launching a campaign to encourage a community-wide discussion about disrespectful language and human rights.

Offense Taken is a project of Self-Advocates of Minnesota (SAM). The program was produced & directed by Verso Creative.

Patrick Jordan's Story
Posted April 2, 2008


Patrick Jordan and family are participants in the Region 10 quality assurance project called VOICE. The Region 10 project began approximately 10 years ago as a group of concerned stakeholders in SE Minnesota. They explored ways to best protect services for
people with developmental disabilities in the event of block grants, which
could have removed funding from services. They chose quality assurance as
an area to protect, and in the process, developed their own QA process known
as VOICE. They were successful in getting state funding to perform QA and
licensing in their region, of which five counties have opted in. For more
information, visit mn-voice.org.