Celebrating Direct Support Professional Recognition 2026

This year, from September 13–19, Nonotuck joins communities across the country in celebrating Direct Support Professional (DSP) Recognition Week and recognizing the DSPs whose work supports people with disabilities to live full, authentic lives.

At the heart of great direct support is something that can sound simple but requires patience, commitment, and care: knowing the person.

It means understanding each person’s unique strengths, needs, goals, and desires. It means learning how someone communicates, what brings them joy, what makes them feel comfortable and secure, what they want to accomplish, and how they want to spend their time. Most importantly, it means recognizing that no two people want or need exactly the same kind of support.

DSPs put that understanding into practice every day.

Their support can take many forms, from assisting with personal care, meals, and mobility to helping someone build new skills or pursue a personal goal. Sometimes it means providing hands-on assistance; other times, it means knowing when to step back so someone can make a choice, try something independently, or take the lead in their own life.

That support extends beyond someone’s immediate needs. DSPs help people build full, community-based lives through employment, volunteering, education, recreation, friendships, relationships, and the everyday experiences that make life meaningful. A meaningful life looks different for everyone, and DSPs help ensure that the people they support have a voice in defining what it looks like for them.

Working alongside Care Managers, Program Directors, nurses, clinicians, caregivers, families, and others throughout Nonotuck, DSPs bring perspectives shaped by the time they spend with the people they support. That collaboration helps provide the continuity and stability people need while keeping each person’s preferences, goals, and voice at the center of their support.

At Nonotuck, this work is closely connected to our mission of providing people with the opportunity to live genuine lives in their homes and communities. It is also grounded in one of our most important beliefs: care is not one-sided.

We believe in interdependence and in relationships rooted in mutuality of love and respect. DSPs and the people they support share experiences, learn from one another, celebrate accomplishments, navigate challenges, and build relationships in which each person can affect, support, and enrich the life of the other.

That is why Direct Support Professional Recognition Week is an opportunity to recognize not only the work DSPs do, but the relationships they build, the understanding they develop, and the ways they help people exercise choice, pursue what matters to them, and live authentic lives.

To the DSPs throughout the Nonotuck community: thank you for taking the time to know the people you support, for listening to their voices, and for helping each person build a life that reflects who they are.