My first blog

Here I am. I sit in my home office and look south, out a round window looking at the glorious Catskill Mountains, and I am about to begin a new life. I have started a new life in a sense with the birth of my daughter exactly 3 years ago and the delightful marriage to my wife of 6 years.  But this new PROFESSIONAL life is all about a movement to improve the lives of well over 1,200,000 people in the United States who call themselves Direct Support Professionals.

Just a few days ago I resigned from a director position at a fairly large human services agency that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  It was time for me to fly. I was at this organization 10 years and trained and educated well over 2000 Direct Support Professionals (D.S.P.) over those years.  In that time, I came to realize that I had great influence in helping the incoming "entry-level" understand that the work they were about to enter, Direct Support, was and is a complex and challenging PROFESSION; please take a moment to view the website in this link to prove that being a D.S.P. is a challenging and rewarding career;

The Profession of Direct Support; A Primer 

This blog will be an ongoing look into the mind and heart of ME, a trainer and educator of Direct Support Professionals and be a diary of sorts of my new beginnings as a national/international consultant and advocate for and with Direct Support Professionals.  I am calling the blog Training Wheels because it feels like I am in need of using them, metaphorically, as I meet DSPs and realize that they are often at the very beginning stages of learning about their profession and they also are new to a field that is finally beginning to get rolling in the United States. 

I hope you enjoy the ramblings and ideas that will come as regularly as I can post and I really would LOVE an ongoing comment and conversation string.  So, here I go...I am entering into a new world of blogging and a new world of being self-employed.  

John