From The Wichita Eagle in Kansas. In the picture, Vicki Littell, left, talks with George Dicks at a Starkey group home where Littell is on the support staff.Vicki Littell can't help but well up at times when she talks about her job, or more specifically, the people she serves.
Littell is a direct support professional at Starkey Inc., a group home for people with developmental disabilities.
In her job, Littell, 50, does everything from meal preparation to assisting people with their bathing and personal hygiene needs -- things some people may not be able to do on their own.
It's a job regarded by nonprofit agencies as among the most demanding, and one with a high turnover rate. In Wichita, more than 20 agencies provide direct support services to people with developmental disabilities.
The job is so difficult to fill -- and retain -- that at least one local provider, Starkey, explored turning to foreign workers to fill the spots.
While Littell, who has been at Starkey for eight years, says that although the job can be both physically and mentally exhausting, she can't see herself doing anything else as a career. The relationships she builds are too valuable to Littell.
"It's really, really, really nice to come in... and (the residents) get up, and they want you, they know you, they know if they need anything, that you are the person who is going to give it to them," she said.
"There's not too many places where you can work where somebody will say, 'Thank you for putting my shoes on,' or 'Thank you for taking me to Wal-Mart.' Just 'thank you' for the little, bitty, bitty things."
In January 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report to Congress, which had called for a study into the shortage of direct support professionals.The study found that in 2003, there were an estimated 874,000 full-time direct support professionals. The department estimated that by 2020, the number of professionals needed to meet the demand would grow to 1.2 million to serve an estimated 1.4 million people with developmental disabilities.
The projections indicate that meeting the future demand for direct support professionals "will be extremely difficult to achieve through enhanced recruitment alone," the report said.The report said that it will be critically important to improve the retention rate along with attracting new workers.
That's something that agencies serving people with developmental disabilities are aware of."It's a huge challenge," said Melissa Bridges, communication relations coordinator for the Kansas Elks Training Center for the Handicapped, which has 23 group homes.
Some agencies, such as Starkey -- which has 39 homes in Wichita that support people with developmental disabilities -- are exploring new recruiting strategies.
The agency has aggressively pursued direct service employees at senior care homes that have closed in other areas.
The agency has also tried recruiting in towns as far away as Great Bend and Miami, Okla., to see whether potential employees would be interested in a schedule that would allow them to work one week and take the next week off.
"We have talked a lot about what we perceive to be a crisis," said Jamie Opat, spokeswoman for Starkey.
It's a crisis that agency leaders say has no easy solution.But one issue they bring up is wages.
Employees at nonprofit agencies earn a starting hourly wage of between $8 and $9, most of which comes from state SRS funds.
Opat said that agency providers were disappointed that a bill before the Kansas Legislature that would have addressed wages for direct support workers for the next three years did not pass with the funding intact.
Rep. Jerry Henry, D-Cummings, worked on the bill and thinks the state budget issue was the main reason the bill was stripped of its funding.
He said it's likely that the bill will be introduced again. It's not an issue, he said, that can be ignored.
"You cannot delay the care of individuals with disabilities, or the elderly or anybody that care has to be provided for," said Henry, who for 30 years has served as executive director of Achievement Services, an Atchison agency that provides services to people with developmental disabilities.
"That care has to be provided. If you don't address it, it just gets worse."
Bridges, of KETCH, hopes it does get addressed soon.
"That would be a major way to retain employees," she said, "and it would make the job more attractive."
Littell, the direct support worker, acknowledged that pay is a big factor.
"Young people out there... look at the job opportunities and say, 'Oh, here's McDonald's, here's QuikTrip, and gosh, they're making a dollar more an hour than they make here. We'll go work there,' " she said.
But the job, she said, is not all about money.
"This job, if you are in it for the money, you're not going to last," she said.
"It's just a great feeling to know that you're helping somebody.... If you have the compassion, you can do the job."
Howard Strickland is among those who appreciates that commitment.
Strickland's 30-year-old daughter, Susan, lives at the home where Littell works. He and his wife are both 74 and would not be physically able to provide all of the assistance that Susan needs, he said.
"It's invaluable," he said of the service Susan receives. "They take care of her as well as we could here at home, and a lot better probably."
For now, the challenge of filling the positions continues.
Kathy Walter, Wichita's division manager of Arrowhead West, which serves people with developmental disabilities, said agencies such as Arrowhead will continue to push for more state funding for direct support workers.
"We are continually trying to meet with legislators to make our plea," she said.Littell thinks that people would come to enjoy the work if they would take the time to build relationships with the people the agencies serve.
"If they would just give themselves a month or whatever," she said, "they would love it."
