Advocacy
Take Action!
Your voice matters! You can help by calling for change, and expressing your support for the policies that uplift the people we serve as well as the direct service professionals who care for them.
Industry partners like the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota (ARRM), help to keep us informed on matters of state policy that impact our cause. Their online Advocacy Center is a fantastic resource for legislative updates and provides an easy way to find and contact your local representatives to ask for their support.
How to use ARRM's Advocacy Center to contact your representative:
- If you're on mobile: scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click the Take Action button under the "Active Active Alerts" header.
- If you're on desktop: you'll find the Take Action button near the bottom right under the "Active Active Alerts" header on the Action Center page.
Enter your street address to find your representatives, and add any personal message you feel important to ARRM's already-curated email template. When you're ready, click either the "Email" or "Print and Mail" button.
A Reason for Change
The average hourly wage for Direct Service Professionals in Minnesota ($16.83) falls $9,610 a year short of the estimated living wage for a single adult in the state ($21.45).
Sources: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bureau of Labor Statistics
40.9% turnover rate for Direct Service Professionals nationally
40% of Direct Service Professionals live near the poverty line nationally
Our direct service professionals deserve to be given fair compensation, healthy work-life balance, and the best training available, just as people impacted by disabilities deserve caregivers who feel safe and stable in their positions.
Providing effective person-centered care (the approach to care that focuses on each individual's needs, preferences, and values) depends on a level of trust and familiarity between staff and the clients they serve. Becoming familiar with someone's values and anticipating their needs takes time and patience, and frequent staff turnover disrupts this process.
Recognizing the challenging and important work direct service professionals do, and fairly compensating for it, is a clear remedy to turnover and burnout. Our industry is dependent on government-funded disability waivers and grants to pay for wages, and the fight for adequate state funding for fair DSP compensation continues to be a decades-long struggle.
Though some real nonpartisan progress has been made over the past few years, we’re still a long way from where we want to be.
In order to add our own voice, Wingspan rallies together with dozens of other organizations at the Disability Services Day at the Capitol: Minnesota's largest rally to advocate for people with disabilities, the direct service professionals who care for them, and their right to live their best lives. This year's rally takes place on March 18th at 10:00am in the Minnesota State Capitol Rotunda. The rally is organized by ARRM.
Visit Our Advocacy Partners
