Direct support associates provide direct care to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Your duties include administering their prescribed medication, supervising their meal preparation, scheduling organization, and producing patient progress report. You will also be expected to coach patients to develop money management, income-building skills, and social skills. You must foster and maintain a supportive relationship with your clients.
Some of your other duties include assisting patients with ADL's, performing first aid, CPR, and handling emergency calls/situations as needed. It is equally important that you adhere to confidentiality guidelines as outlined by organization policy and HIPAA regulations. A direct support associate must be empathetic, patient, detail-oriented, easy to communicate with, and possess great interpersonal skills.
Other important skills are intellectual disabilities, independent living, emotional support, personal care, and daily routines. Direct support associates make an average of $10.39 per hour and $21,000 yearly.
How to Become a Direct Support Associate
What is a Direct Support Associate
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Direct Support Associate. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.08 an hour? That's $29,280 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 36% and produce 1,185,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Direct Support Associate Do
There are certain skills that many Direct Support Associates have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed Detail oriented, Integrity and Interpersonal skills.
How To Become a Direct Support Associate
If you're interested in becoming a Direct Support Associate, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 31.2% of Direct Support Associates have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.7% of Direct Support Associates have master's degrees. Even though some Direct Support Associates have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a Direct Support Associate. When we researched the most common majors for a Direct Support Associate, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or High School Diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Direct Support Associate resumes include Associate Degree degrees or Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Direct Support Associate. In fact, many Direct Support Associate jobs require experience in a role such as Cashier. Meanwhile, many Direct Support Associates also have previous career experience in roles such as Certified Nursing Assistant or Customer Service Representative.
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Direct Support Associate Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of Certified Nursing Assistant you might progress to a role such as Team Leader eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title Director Of Social Services.
Direct Support Associate Jobs You Might Like
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Average Salary for a Direct Support Associate
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5 Direct Support Associate Resume Examples
Build a professional direct support associate resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 5+ resume templates to create your direct support associate resume.
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Helen Watson Direct Support Associate |
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Helen Watson Direct Support Associate Experience Direct Support Associate2011 - Present Young Adult Institute•New York, NY
Direct Care Professional2010 - 2011 Young Adult Institute•New York, NY
Habilitation Technician2009 - 2010 Selfhelp Community Services•New York, NY
Skills Intellectual DisabilitiesEmotional SupportAnimal CareDirect SupportADLIncident ReportsSpecial EducationCPRPatient CareCommunication Education High School Diploma 2009 - 2009 |
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Learn How To Write a Direct Support Associate Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Direct Support Associate resumes and compiled some information about how to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Direct Support Associate Resume Examples And TemplatesAnd if you’re looking for a job, here are the five top employers hiring now:
Choose From 10+ Customizable Direct Support Associate Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Direct Support Associate templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Direct Support Associate resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Find the best Direct Support Associate job for you
Direct Support Associate Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Direct Support Associate Jobs - $42K and Up
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- No Degree Direct Support Associate Jobs
Find the best Direct Support Associate job for you
Direct Support Associate Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Direct Support Associate Jobs - $42K and Up
- Entry Level Direct Support Associate Jobs
- Part Time Direct Support Associate Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Direct Support Associate Jobs
Online Courses For Direct Support Associate That You May Like
This course takes a deep dive into the challenges families and friends of a patient with serious illness face and how you can care for and support them as a provider, social worker or family friend. Supporting Families and Caregivers especially focuses on the children of a patient with serious illness and their caregiver, and teaches you the best way to empower them to get the support they need. By the end of this course, you will be able to provide critical avenues of support for the people who...
Please join us for an exciting and innovative journey, examining one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of the oncology setting: Traditional Herbal Medicine in Supportive Cancer Care. This course is presented with short lectures offering a wide range of issues related to the principles and practice of herbal medicine in cancer care. The course includes interviews with leading world experts from the field of Integrative Oncology, from the U.S. and Canada, as well as Europe, the Mi...
This course is about caring for and educating children (and youth) with severe to profound intellectual disability. We use the idea of 'circles' to position the child at the center of the many levels of support needed. Around the child are circles of care and education - such as the parents, family, friends, caregivers, educators, health care workers and others such as neighbors, business owners and community members. Each one has an important role to play in the life of a person with an intelle...
Top Skills For a Direct Support Associate
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 22.8% of Direct Support Associates listed Intellectual Disabilities on their resume, but soft skills such as Detail oriented and Integrity are important as well.
Best States For a Direct Support Associate
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a Direct Support Associate. The best states for people in this position are Oregon, Alaska, New York, and Washington. Direct Support Associates make the most in Oregon with an average salary of $36,872. Whereas in Alaska and New York, they would average $35,334 and $34,748, respectively. While Direct Support Associates would only make an average of $34,196 in Washington, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New York
$34,748
Avg. Salary
2. Pennsylvania
$30,499
Avg. Salary
3. Washington
$34,196
Avg. Salary
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