Direct Support Professional Jobs in Arizona
A Direct Support Professional is a trained caregiver who helps a person with a developmental disability live independently in their own home and community. In Arizona, DSPs work for agencies contracted with the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD), and the people they support are called members.
You don’t need a degree, a certification, or prior experience to apply. Endeavor can provide the training you need to get up to speed, including in-house training.
Ready now? See open positions or call the office nearest you: East Valley office: (480) 933-6069. The West Valley office: (602) 610-6877. The Prescott and Yavapai County office: (928) 830-0136
What a Direct Support Professional Does
A Direct Support Professional provides hands-on daily support to someone with an intellectual or developmental disability.
DSPs support people with disabilities to participate fully in their communities, live in integrated settings, and work competitive jobs. That means the work runs wider than personal care. You might help someone shower in the morning and help the same person practice riding the bus in the afternoon.
The members you’d support qualify under one of six DDD categories: autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, epilepsy, intellectual disability, and an at-risk category for young children. Members range from toddlers to older adults, and no two assignments look the same. What stays constant is that you’re supporting people toward goals written into their own service plan.
Direct Support Professional Duties and Responsibilities
A Direct Support Professional (DSP) works directly with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to foster independence and support daily living. Operating on the front lines, a DSP helps carry out the member’s Individual Support Plan (ISP) through services like habilitation, attendant care, and respite. Their hands-on duties range from assisting with personal hygiene, mobility, and meal preparation to teaching life skills, driving members to community outings or appointments, and documenting daily progress and health changes.
Conversely, a DSP does not act as a licensed medical professional, clinical therapist, or legal decision-maker. They cannot diagnose medical conditions, prescribe medications, alter care protocols, or manage high-level personal finances. They also do not write or officially modify the member’s ISP—that role belongs to the DDD Support Coordinator in collaboration with the member’s planning team.
The Three Services You Can Provide in Arizona
Most caregiving jobs are one job. In Arizona’s DDD system, the same DSP is usually trained and scheduled across three distinct services, each with its own rules and its own rhythm.
Attendant care is the personal care and household support described above. Habilitación is the teaching side. Habilitation covers training in independent living skills, developmental skills, sensory and motor development, orientation and mobility, and behavior support. The point is to build the member’s skill, not to complete the task for them. Progress toward each goal gets evaluated at least twice a year.
Respite is the third service. It gives a family caregiver rest, and usually has an annual cap.
Requirements to Become a Direct Support Professional in Arizona
You’ll need a Level One Fingerprint Clearance Card.
If your Fingerprint Clearance Card is denied, you can usually apply to the Arizona Board of Fingerprinting for a good cause exception, so a record on your history isn’t automatically the end of the conversation.
Two registry checks run separately from the fingerprint card. Your employer searches the Arizona Adult Protective Services Registry and the Department of Child Safety Registry when you’re hired and every year after. A substantiated finding of abuse, neglect, or exploitation on either registry bars you from this work.
A few practical items round out the list. You’ll give three references who aren’t family members and who know your work history or character, so line those up before you apply. Note that the registry checks are separate from your fingerprint card on purpose: a substantiated finding is not a criminal conviction, so it never shows up on the card. You’ll sign a notarized attestation about your criminal history at hire and annually.
Most positions need a valid driver’s license and reliable transportation, because getting members to appointments and into the community is part of the job.
Lastly, you will need to be Article 9 and CPR/First Aid certified. These can be done after hire but before working with a member.
Training Endeavor Provides In-House
Endeavor helps you obtain your Artículo 9, CPR and first aid, and Positive Behavior Support certifications. Article 9 is Arizona’s rule on managing behavior safely. CPR and first aid includes an in-person skills demonstration, so an online-only certificate won’t clear, and it has to be current before you work a shift.
If you’ve done this work before, say so. Your past experience and or certifications could help with this step. Plenty of experienced applicants redo training they never had to redo.
Schedules, Hours, and What a Week Looks Like
Shifts are built around individual members and their authorized hours, which means schedules vary more than in a facility job. Some DSPs work a steady weekday routine with one or two members. Others build a full week from several shorter assignments. Part-time is genuinely available and common, which is why this job works for students, parents, and people holding a second job.
Arizona caps any direct care worker at 16 hours of paid care in a 24-hour period. Electronic visit verification governs how you record time: you clock in and out electronically at the point of care, capturing the service type, the member, the date, the location, who provided it, and the start and end time.
Most people use a phone app and stop thinking about it after week one.
Supervision follows a set cadence when you start with a new member doing ATC work: an initial check around day 5, then day 30, day 60 if anything needs attention, and day 90 with you present. After that, visits continue at least every 90 days. It’s scheduled oversight built into the policy, not a sign anyone thinks you’re struggling.
Where Endeavor Hires Across Arizona
We hire from three offices covering three regions. The East Valley office: (480) 933-6069, the West Valley office: (602) 610-6877, and the Prescott and Yavapai County office: (928) 830-0136.
The Prescott and Yavapai region is worth a specific mention. Rural and small-city Arizona has far fewer providers than the Phoenix metro, which means shorter commutes to members and less competition for hours. If you live up there and assumed this work was a Valley job, it isn’t. You can browse all three service areas to see which cities we cover.
Becoming a Paid Caregiver for Your Own Family Member
If you’re reading this because someone in your own family has a developmental disability, there’s a path most job seekers never hear about. Arizona’s Parents as Paid Caregivers model lets a parent or legal guardian be hired and paid as their own child’s direct care worker. It became a permanent option in February 2024.
You still complete the training, the clearances, and the fingerprint card, and you’re employed by a Qualified Vendor the same as any other DSP.
How to Apply and What Happens Next
Applying takes about fifteen minutes. Browse our open positions and submit an application, and someone from our team follows up to talk through which region and which services fit your availability. From there you complete your background and registry checks, submit your fingerprint card application, and schedule your training.
Two things control how fast you start, and neither one is the classroom. The first is your CPR and first aid certification, because it has to be current and hands-on before you work a shift. The second is the fingerprint clearance card. Processing is usually quick, but an old arrest with unresolved paperwork can stall it for weeks while the state researches the disposition. Applicants who start their card and book an in-person CPR class on the same day they apply move fastest by a wide margin.
Want to know what it’s actually like here first? Read about our culture, meet the care team, or just call us and ask.