During this holiday season, we want to acknowledge our exceptional direct-support professionals and the extraordinary leadership teams who reinforce them. Our workforce provides round-the-clock supports to people with developmental disabilities and their families at home, at work, in our community.

Our essential teams ensure that Connecticut’s most vulnerable citizens are safe and healthy. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the United States last March, our employees continue to risk their own health and that of their families to serve people who could not survive otherwise. Our teams do not hesitate even when the people who need them are ill with COVID-19, though doing so exposes them to the virus too.

They need help

As we extend profound gratitude to our essential frontline workers, we ask elected officials to do the same by: Prioritizing adequate supplies of Personal Protective Equipment for our employees; prioritizing testing and vaccines for our workforce like other essential health workers; and fighting to increase Medicaid rates to ensure livable wages for direct support professionals. We have seen no rate increase since 2007.

Please join us in thanking our direct-support heroes by advocating for legislative action. We are the safety net.

Sheila Cordock is the executive director of Whole Life; Kathleen Stauffer is the chief executive officer of The Arc Eastern Connecticut; and Pam DonAroma is the chief executive officer and president of Futures Inc.