Dear Colleague, 

As part of a continuing collaborative effort to address the Direct Support Professional (DSP) workforce crisis facing Pennsylvania's Intellectual Disability and Autism (ID/A) service system, seven associations have joined to support a survey of compensation practices regarding Pennsylvania DSPs who work in the intellectual disability/ autism fields.  These seven associations are:

        1. Moving Agencies Towards Excellence (MAX)
        2. Pennsylvania Advocacy and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disability (PAR)
        3. Rehabilitation and Community Providers Association (RCPA)
        4. The Alliance of Community Service Providers (The Alliance CSP)
        5. The Arc of Pennsylvania (The Arc of PA)
        6. The Provider Alliance (TPA)
        7. United Cerebral Palsy of Pennsylvania (UCP of PA)

The seven associations have collaborated to design a questionnaire that will enable us to collect information regarding compensation, benefits, turnover, and vacancy rates.  Responses will be solicited from providers that belong to one or more of these associations.

We are asking you to participate in this project. Please note that in survey research such as this, the response rate is one of the most important considerations. The believability of our data will be enhanced by a large response rate.  Your participation in the project is crucial to ensuring that our data are believable.   Please note that if you belong to more than one of the seven associations, you should only complete one questionnaire.

We plan to use the findings from this project to advocate for increased funding levels during the next budget planning cycle.  A summary report will be completed and made available to all respondents, and it is likely that the results will be presented at one or more of the association conferences. 

We thank you for your participation in this project.

T