AUBURN — Gail True and Patience Success Juwah, or Success as she prefers to be called, are direct service professionals at John F. Murphy Homes. It’s a challenging job that requires few skills to start, but an accumulation of specialized skills to become successful, including listening, problem-solving, communication and critical thinking.

At John F. Murphy Homes, DSPs work with children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder. True has 28 years of experience, 27 of them with John F. Murphy Homes. Juwah, originally from Nigeria, started her career as a direct service provider four years ago.

“I studied English and literature, you know, as that’s my bachelor’s degree,” Juwah explained, “but coming here, I had to start all over again. So this was a job I felt I could fit in, like taking care of people that really needed help.”

Immigrants coming to Maine like Juwah frequently have university degrees or experience in healthcare but may need to retrain or recertify in order to work in the healthcare field in Maine.

Maine Department of Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman recently told a gathering of immigrant professionals in Lewiston that the state is looking to them to help fill the many open jobs in healthcare. Frequently, the biggest holdup is obtaining work authorization.

CHALLENGING WORK COMES WITH REWARDS

Both True and Juwah work overnights, a notoriously difficult shift for some workers, who have to adjust their lives to make it work. But it seems to work just fine for Juwah and True.

“I got married a few years after I started here,” said True, “and it was perfect to work third shift because I didn’t miss any of my children’s activities. The only thing I missed was them getting up in the morning, but once they went to school, I was there when they got home. So, the biggest challenge is finding how do I get some sleep in my day.”

For Juwah, she took the job at John F. Murphy Homes as a starting point. “But when I started doing the job, I realized it gives me joy,” she explained. “It’s something I enjoy doing, you know, putting smiles on their faces and seeing them happy… being able to help people that are unable to help themselves.”

She says she understands because she has an older mother back in Nigeria. You can tell by listening to both women that they care deeply about the people they care for and the careers they have.

A typical day for Juwah begins with administering medications, then getting the people she cares for ready for bed, making sure they are clean and dry. “I know it’s a little bit difficult, but it’s something I just want to do,” Juwah said. “I do it because I have to take care of them, it’s what I get to do.”

While they sleep, Juwah constantly monitors them and takes care of her administrative work — documenting everything she does for the people she supports. In the morning, Juwah bathes and changes them, prepares breakfast, administers medications, and then takes them to work.

Turnover is high in this field and DSPs have traditionally been underpaid, although that is changing. True said that in 26 years she’s had 19 bosses and about 100 coworkers. She said people coming and going in the group home and staff turnover makes it easy to lose the momentum of what they do for the people they serve.

“When we come in to work, it’s not a workday for our clients, it’s their lives,” True said. “So, if you’re having a bad day at work and you feel like doing nothing, that’s a day you wasted of their lives. So, making sure that people understand that, that people get what we do, that we’re not just here to keep them alive. We’re here to give them the best life.”

The COVID-19 pandemic was especially challenging for direct support professionals. Mandatory vaccinations turned people away, True recalled, leaving them short-staffed and the men and women who live in the group homes scared about what was going on.

“Our people were suffering because not only were they worried about what’s going on, and we were so short-staffed, but then they couldn’t go out to their programs,” True said. “They couldn’t go out and do their normal life, so they were stuck at home.”

“I was scared initially,” Juwah remembered, “but because of their attachments, because I know these people cannot help themselves. Now they need me more than they ever do.” Juwah said she was determined to see the pandemic through. “I stayed with them, I took good care of them until everybody got better.”

Both Juwah and True are part of the Direct Care and Support Professional Advisory Council established by the Maine Long Term Care Ombudsman Program. The goal is to bring workers together to create a collective voice to inform policymakers about the issues that are important to workers — issues like staffing, wages, benefits, and training.

True says being on the advisory council is an opportunity to give direct support professionals a voice. “Now it’s time to advocate for staff,” she said. “The best way to get more staff is to get us more money, better benefits, and put the word out there that it’s a nice job to do, and anyone can do it.”

Passion plays a big role, True added. “Most people want to help others — they just don’t know how. And they don’t want to do it for pennies on the dollar, they want to get paid fairly to do this job, because it is challenging. Because not only is it personal care, there’s behavioral issues, there’s transportation, there’s passive medications. You have their lives in your hands.”

Juwah says the best part of her job starts when she walks into her group home, and she hears the people she supports call out her name. “They are so excited to see me, you know, the joy makes me happy. Then also being able to help those people, and then being able to know what they actually want, (to) listen to them, and then I’m able to, you know, give solutions to their problems. That makes me happy.”

Job satisfaction comes in many different forms, and for providers like True and Juwah, seeing the people they care for accomplish something or do something they’ve never done before is reward itself.

“I had a guy, I went on a trip with him, and he wanted to go snorkeling,” True started. “He’s a fantastic swimmer, and we got out there, and it was far more challenging for him because the breathing, and the fins, and whatever,” she recalled. “When he finally got out there and saw what they had put under the water for us to see, it was like he had won a million dollars.”

Patience and persistence are also key skills. True explained how one person under her care was non-verbal and could not express himself. After working with him at length, explaining feelings and other issues, one day he came up to True and told her he was mad at a staff member.

“I had to go in the bathroom and cry for 15 minutes, because we had given him the ability to speak up for himself and (it) changed his life. From that moment on, his life went from trying to figure out how to tell us things to speaking non-stop, and it was amazing… I still have goosebumps to this day because it changed his life, you know, so we can change lives, we can truly make a difference. And that’s what motivates me.”

True calls herself a lifer but has no illusions of wanting to move into administration — she doesn’t want to be the boss. “I have a good schedule, I have a lot of vacation time, so I can do the things that make me happy and still do the job that makes me happy,” she concluded.

Juwah is in the early stages of her career, but says she has no plans to go anywhere. Instead, she said it has always been her dream to become a nurse — even if it means going back to school and working at the same time.

Her advice for anyone considering a career as a direct support professional is straightforward: “Patience, and of course, love. If you do not have love, you cannot give away what you don’t have — you need love.”

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