Show Your Support — A Message to Direct Support Workers #ApplaudDirectSupport

Dear Friend,

Our direct support staff at both the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and our voluntary provider agencies are working on the front lines of this public health emergency every day, doing what they can to protect the health and well-being of the people we support. They do it with kindness, grace, professionalism and love. Their jobs are difficult and taxing on a normal day, but these most recent days are neither normal nor ordinary. What is being asked of our direct support staff now is unimaginable to most.

While we know there is no way to adequately thank our workers who are on the front lines, we can come together to let them know that we see them, we appreciate them, and we applaud them.

We’re asking you to join us by sharing our video message applauding direct support workers from our Facebook page. While we can’t be together physically to commend their dedication and resolve, we can lift their spirits by making sure they hear us. Direct Support workers are the definition of #NewYorkTough not just during this time, but all the time. Share the video to show your virtual applause using the hashtags #NewYorkTough and #ApplaudDirectSupport and don’t forget to let us know you shared it by tagging @NYSOPWDD

Thank you, 

Theodore Kastner, MD, MS
Commissioner

Please click here to view our video message to Direct Support Workers.