Sign Up to Become a Direct Support Professional
A Direct Support Professional is a trained caregiver who helps a person with a developmental disability live independently at home and take part in their own community. You can sign up with no experience, no certification, and no degree.
Sign up and see open positions, or call the office nearest you: East Valley (480) 933-6069, West Valley (602) 610-6877, or Prescott Valley (928) 830-0136, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
What a Direct Support Professional Is
A Direct Support Professional, usually shortened to DSP, provides one-on-one support to someone with an intellectual or developmental disability in that person’s own home and neighborhood. You are working alongside one person, in their life, on the goals written into their own service plan.
In Arizona, the people you’d support are called members. Members qualify under one of six categories: autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, epilepsy, intellectual disability, and an at-risk category for young children. They range in age from toddlers to older adults.
Endeavor is a DDD Qualified Vendor, which means the state contracts us to deliver three services: attendant care, habilitation, and respite. As a DSP you deliver those services.
Why Direct Support Work Matters
The DSP role supports people with disabilities to participate fully in their communities, live in integrated settings, and pursue competitive employment.
In practice that means the job is bigger than tasks. You might help someone shower in the morning and help the same person practice a bus route in the afternoon, then write a note about how the route went so their service plan reflects real progress. Skill-building is a billable, expected part of the work, not a nice extra.
Who Thrives as a Direct Support Professional
The people who do well in this job tend to share three things: they show up when they said they would, they stay calm when a plan falls apart, and they have a heart that yearns to enrich the life of their member. None of those are credentials. All of them matter more than a resume.
This work suits a lot of people who never considered it. Career changers leaving retail, food service, or warehouse work often find the hours more predictable and the work more meaningful. Students and parents use the part-time flexibility, since shifts are built around individual members rather than a facility schedule. People already caring for a family member frequently discover they’ve been doing a version of this job unpaid for years.
Learn about our culture y why people choose Endeavor..
You Can Start Without Experience or a Certification
Endeavor helps you get your Artículo 9, CPR and first aid, and Positive Behavior Support training at our own offices. Article 9 is Arizona’s rule on keeping people safe during a behavioral crisis. CPR and first aid also requires an in-person skills demonstration, so an online-only certificate won’t clear.
If you’ve done caregiving work before, tell us during the application, you might have experience and certifications that can help expedite the process. A surprising number of experienced applicants redo training they never had to redo.
Steps to Sign Up
- Submit your application. Browse open positions and apply to the region and schedule that fits you. It takes about fifteen minutes.
- Talk with our team. Someone follows up to go over your availability, the areas you can reach, and which services suit you.
- Start your clearances. We will assist you here – do not do it on your own. Background check, Adult Protective Services and Department of Child Safety registry checks, and your Level One Fingerprint Clearance Card application through the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
- Complete your training. Article 9, CPR and first aid, and Arizona’s direct care worker curriculum, delivered at our offices.
- Meet your member and start. Shadowing, visit verification setup, and your first paid shifts.
Two items control how fast you start, and neither is the classroom. Current hands-on CPR and first aid certification has to be in place before you work a shift, and your fingerprint clearance card has to clear. The card usually processes within a day or two, but an old arrest with unresolved paperwork can stall it while the state researches the disposition. Start both on the day you apply and you’ll move faster than almost everyone else.
Have three references ready who aren’t family members and who know your work or your character. Arizona requires them, and chasing them down later is the most common self-inflicted delay.
Where You’d Work
We hire across three Arizona regions. The East Valley office: (480) 933-6069. The West Valley office: (602) 610-6877. The Prescott and Yavapai County office: (928) 830-0136.
If you’re in the Prescott area, this is worth knowing: rural and small-city Arizona has far fewer providers than the Phoenix metro, so commutes tend to be shorter and hours easier to hold onto. You can see every city we cover on our service areas page.
Signing Up to Support Your Own Family Member
If the person you want to support is your own child, there’s a separate path. 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 complete the same clearances and the same core training, and you’re employed by a Qualified Vendor like any other DSP. If that describes you, start with the paid parent caregiver page instead of a general application.
Not sure which route fits? Call us and describe your situation. We’ll point you at the right one, even if it isn’t a job with us.