We are happy to announce that this year’s Direct Support Professional of the Year Award winner goes to Bridgette, one of our job coaches!
Donald has been a DSP with Continuum for over 16 years! Here is Bridgette’s winning nomination:
Bridgette has always been someone that gives everything she has to the individuals and families she serves.
One recent example of this is, Bridgette has been working with a young girl with high needs. Her parents were pretty fearful of a lot of things; work, transportation, being in the community. Bridgette poured herself into creating a relationship with the family. Not only had she started to make strides with the individual toward independence and employment, but she gained the trust of and showed the parents that the individual had more capabilities than they realized. DVR requested that we assist with getting the individual set up with social security and into Developmental Pathways services. This isn’t within the scope of Bridgette’s job description, but she wanted to take it on because of the relationship she had formed and her understanding of how important it was to the long-term care of the individual. This task required extensive time and effort on Bridgette’s part to teach the parents more about technology and the process as well as follow-up with the family.
Bridgette never backs down from a challenge. When she was tasked with helping an individual whose parents are elderly and don’t have or don’t know how to use a computer, Bridgette was happy to help. It took a lot of time and effort, but she was able to clear up some complications with social security and also help her get signed up for waiver services. This might seem small, but due to their lack of skills with technology, it is very likely that the individual may have never received the services she needs.
Bridgette has an individual on her caseload who struggles with mental health and has some higher behavioral needs than we typically see in employment. She faced this challenge head-on and went into the situation with an open mind. She didn’t let what she had heard stop her from forming a relationship with the individual. When he would go through times of mental health struggles, she would advocate to the team to look at the support around him. She suggested ways in which she could still support him because she knew that the two hours he worked were a positive in his life. Additionally, in getting to know him, she was able to find ways to break things down for him at a level that he would respond well to. She was tasked with helping him learn some skills that he would need to be more employable and to do this, she worked on these skills in a casual manner that didn’t make it feel like work but rather just spending time with him. This approach helped to decrease his (historically) challenging behaviors because he was getting the support he needed.
Bridgette, for your 16+ years of service with Continuum of Colorado and your willingness to form great relationships to empower people, Congratulations on winning DSP of the Year 2024!