Laura Pittman: the nation's first credentialed direct support professional

Exceptional Parent, The, July, 2007 by Tom King

Once you get to know Laura Pittman, it is easy to understand and appreciate why she holds the very first credential ever awarded by the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP).

It was meant to be.

Laura is a Direct Support Professional (DSP) at the Orange Grove Center (OGC) in Chattanooga, TN and has been working there for almost ten years. She has been a DSP for seven of those years, and in that role, supported four women at one of the Orange Grove Center residential settings. These four women are challenged with a variety of developmental disabilities.

"I focus all of my energy on improving their lives, and if they're happy then I'm happy," Laura says. "I absolutely love my job, and I love them."

That, in a nutshell, exemplifies the core mission of a Direct Support Professional as stated by the NADSP: Making a world of difference in people's lives.

But as of January 2007, Laura's role changed at Orange Grove Center. She is still a DSP and subs when needed but is now the administrative assistant in Orange Grove Center's Quality Compliance office, which also oversees staff orientation and ongoing training at the agency.

How does she like her new role? "I love it. I love every job I have and do," Laura says. "I'm still a DSP."

In her new job, she will be involved in OGC's training program to implement the College of Direct Support at Orange Grove. Tennessee signed a five-year contract in 2007 to train the statewide workforce, and that will mean Laura will be helping in the training of other DSPs.

When she was told that she was the very first DSP in the country to complete the first level of the new NADSP credentialing program, she said, "I stopped and thought about it for a minute, and you know, I was really proud of myself. Then I headed out and went on to work."

Laura Pittman makes a difference in the lives of many people in a variety of ways. Listen to what Deirdre Anderson White, director of Orange Grove Center's Intermediate Care Facilities, says about Laura: "She's a go-getter, and she is committed, caring, and nurturing. She is a visionary and appreciates the value of professional development because she knows it will be beneficial to her and thus to those ladies she cares for. I am not all surprised that she's the first to earn the NADSP credential.

"She has a legitimate and viable understanding of her role. She gets it," White said, emphasizing the word "gets."

One reason she "gets it" is related to Jonathan, at 25, the oldest of her four children. Jonathan has a developmental disability and a speech impairment, a seizure disorder, and challenging behavior. Laura has been his primary support person since he was born.

Her other children are Brian, 24, a junior computer engineering student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Justin, 20; and Amber, 18. Justin and Amber work together at a Chattanooga eatery.

It is as Laura says--she cares for two families.

"I work, and I go home. That's what I do," Laura says. "They are my girls, my other family at work. I don't know which family is easier to care for. Sometimes I think it's my girls at work."

She began working at Orange Grove on April 7, 1997 in the cafeteria's Nutrition Services department. Two years later she transferred to the Intermediate Care Facilities (ICF) division of OGC's residential program.

"I read the job description and thought to myself, 'I can do this. It's the same thing I do at home for Jonathan,'" Laura said. With that realization, her career as a DSP was off and running. And as always, Laura is still running. She never slows down.

Laura's schedule at Orange Grove Center allowed her to care for both families. She worked in the OGC residence from midnight to 8 a.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays and from midnight to noon on Fridays and Saturdays. She did bed checks every 30 minutes; cleaned the house; did the necessary paperwork; and in the mornings, she helped her "girls" with showers and personal care and getting dressed. She also cooked breakfast for them. "And sometimes I worked over for the housekeeper," Laura says.

And it's not just helping the housekeepers. She helps everyone.

White recalled a time in 2005 when their office secretary was out for a week. Laura stepped into that role along with doing her regular DSP work at night. There are weeks now when Laura fills in the work gaps for others as well as keeping up with her new job in the Quality Compliance department, and thus spends somewhere around 60 or 70 hours at Orange Grove Center. "Those are the times when I don't go to bed," she says.

"Her computer and organizational skills are incredible," White says. "She has exceptional organizational skills. She taught us how to function more efficiently. She has a very, very broad skill set. She chips in wherever we need her and is always willing to help out everywhere. She is dedicated and is cooperation personified."

Of her computer and organizational skills, Laura offers this: "I am completely self taught on the computer with one exception; my kids taught me Microsoft Word and the rest I learned on my own. It was just trial and error and not being afraid to make mistakes. As for the organizational skills, I was a mother at 16, and I have had to care for Jonathan 24/7 since he was born; then I had the other three kids. I had to develop organizational skills to make sure it all got done and for us to all survive." And now she's putting those skills to work in her new position.