Direct Support Professional Job Description Template
A direct support professional helps an adult with an intellectual or developmental disability live the life they choose — at home, at work, in the community. It is one of the hardest roles to advertise honestly, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish a DSP occupation at all. Two adjacent occupations bracket the pay, and our own campaign data puts behavioral health and DSP among the most expensive and by far the most volatile role family we measure. Both of those facts belong in how you write the posting.
What a direct support professional does — and why BLS has no number for it
The job is support rather than care in the clinical sense: helping with daily living where help is wanted, teaching and maintaining skills, supporting community access, employment and relationships, administering or prompting medication within your program rules, documenting against a service plan, and being the person who notices when something is wrong. In a group home that is a shift. In supported living it is a series of visits. In a day program it is a room and a schedule. The title is the same in all three and the job is not.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes no occupation called direct support professional. The phrase does not appear in the Handbook. Two published occupations sit either side of the role. Home health and personal care aides — median $17.21 an hour or $35,800 a year, 4,677,100 jobs in 2025, growing 18% through 2035 with about 760,500 openings a year — covers the hands-on side, and the Handbook says directly that some of these aides work specifically with people who have developmental or intellectual disabilities, helping create a behavior plan and teaching self-care skills. Social and human service assistants — median $22.08 an hour or $45,930 a year, 463,400 jobs in 2025, growing 7% with about 48,900 openings a year — covers the coordination side.
That is a $10,130 gap between two occupations that both describe part of the job, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you write a wage line. The most specific published number is better than either: in the aide series, residential intellectual and developmental disability facilities pay a median of $37,340 — the highest of any setting in that occupation, ahead of $37,060 in continuing care retirement communities, $36,230 in home healthcare services and $34,900 in individual and family services. If you are a residential IDD provider, that is your benchmark, and being above it is worth saying out loud.
Direct support professional job description template
Copy this, replace everything in brackets, and delete any line you cannot honestly stand behind. The bracketed items are the ones candidates actually read — leaving them as brackets is worse than leaving them out.
Job title
Direct support professional
Summary
[Provider] is hiring direct support professionals to support adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in [group home / supported living / day program] in [city]. You will support daily living, community access and personal goals on a [named shift] with [X] people you get to know. Pay is [$XX.XX–$XX.XX an hour] with [shift differential] and [paid training].
Responsibilities
- Support daily living where support is wanted: personal care, meals, household routines
- Teach and maintain skills toward the goals in each person’s [service or support plan]
- Support community access, work, appointments and relationships [driving an agency vehicle]
- [Administer or prompt medication] within [your state and program requirements]
- Implement [behavior support plans] and use [approved de-escalation approach]
- Document supports and progress in [system] before the end of every shift
- Report incidents, changes in health and safeguarding concerns to [role] immediately
- Keep the home safe, clean and stocked, and treat it as the person’s home rather than a workplace
Requirements
- 18 or older and legally authorized to work
- High school diploma or equivalent
- Valid driver’s license and [an acceptable driving record] for [community supports]
- Pass a background check, [registry checks] and [pre-employment screening]
- Complete [state and provider required training] — we pay for all of it
- Able to lift and assist [X] lb and support [transfers or mobility equipment] where needed
Preferred
- Experience supporting people with [autism / complex behavior / medical needs]
- [Medication administration certification]
- Experience with [supported employment / community inclusion]
- Current CPR and first aid certification
- Second language spoken by the people we support: [language]
Schedule and pay
- [Named shift and days — not flexible schedule]
- [Awake overnight / asleep overnight and how it is paid]
- [Weekend rotation and how often it comes round]
- [Shift differential of $X.XX an hour]; [overtime is voluntary]
- [Consistent assignment to the same home and the same people]
Benefits
- Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60] at [X] hours a week
- Paid time off that accrues from your first shift
- [401(k) with X% match]
- [Paid training and certification]; [career path to lead DSP, QIDP or case management]
- [Referral bonus of $X for a DSP who stays 90 days]
The six things to settle before the posting goes live
There is no national wage series and no single version of this job, so more of the posting is your decision than in any other role on this site. These are the six decisions.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Which job you are advertising | Residential, supported living, day program and behavioral support are four different jobs under one title. A posting that does not say which will fill with people who leave inside a month. Name the setting in the first line. |
| The wage benchmark you are using | BLS publishes no DSP wage. The two bracketing occupations run $17.21 and $22.08 an hour at the median, and the closest published setting figure is $37,340 in residential IDD facilities. Pick one, name it internally, and know which side of it your offer sits on. |
| Medication and clinical scope | Whether your DSPs administer medication, and what training and certification that requires, is set by your state and your program rather than by the job title. Settle it before posting, because it changes the pool you are writing to. |
| Driving | Community supports usually mean driving, sometimes an agency vehicle, sometimes the employee’s own. Say which, say whether mileage is paid, and state the driving-record standard up front rather than at offer stage. |
| Overnights | Awake overnight and asleep overnight are different jobs with different pay and different candidates. Postings that leave this vague lose people at interview. Name the shift and how it is paid. |
| Training and who pays | Required training is substantial in this field and it is your strongest recruiting asset, not a barrier. Say that it is paid, scheduled and starts on a named date. |
How to customize it for your setting
Residential group homes
Your benchmark is the $37,340 residential IDD median, the highest-paid setting in the aide occupation. Lead with the house, the number of people supported and the shift, because those are what a DSP is really choosing between. Consistent assignment to one home is worth more than a small differential and costs you nothing to offer.
Supported living and in-home
This reads to candidates like home care, so it will attract the caregiver pool — a pool with a 31% apply rate and a very different set of expectations. That is useful reach, but say plainly that the work is skill-building and community access rather than personal care, or your first ninety days will be expensive.
Day and community programs
Weekday hours, no overnights and a team in the building are a genuine advantage over residential work and almost nobody advertises them. If you have them, they belong above the wage line.
Behavioral health providers
This is the widest-spread role family in our data, and providers hiring for complex behavioral support sit at the top of it. Be specific about the support model, the training and the staffing ratio. Vagueness here is what produces a $334 applicant.
What it costs to reach DSPs on social
Our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark publishes a behavioral health and DSP role family, so this page can quote the role rather than a neighbor. Across 19 campaigns the median cost per applicant was $55.55, the blended average $36.39, the apply rate 9% and the click-through rate 0.75% — the lowest of the fifteen families we publish.
The number that matters more is the range. The middle half of campaigns ran from $18.36 to $334.56 — an eighteenfold spread inside one role family, between employers hiring the same job in the same period with budgets of a similar size. When a band is that wide, difficulty is not the explanation; what happens after the click is. The sector line tells the same story: behavioral and education campaigns had a median of $27.50, a middle half of $15.35 to $76.67 and a blended $24.45 across 81 campaigns, the widest and least predictable sector in the study. Budget it month to month with contingency, not as a fixed line. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire.
The hiring side of this role — where support staff come from, why they leave and what a behavioral or senior living campaign costs — is covered on our where to find caregivers, caregiver turnover and therapy staffing pages.
Writing the ad version
The description above is a document. The ad is forty words, and in this role they should be about the setting and the shift rather than the mission: “Direct support professional, [town] group home, [named shift], $XX.XX an hour, paid training, same house every week.” Every DSP reading it has already been told the work is meaningful. What they do not know is which of the four jobs this is.
This family has the lowest click-through rate we publish, at 0.75%, and the widest cost range by a distance. Both are symptoms of the same thing: postings that describe a philosophy instead of a shift. Our candidate conversion rate guide covers what happens after the click, and fifteen worked ad examples are in our help wanted ad examples library.
Frequently asked questions
What does a direct support professional do?
A direct support professional supports an adult with an intellectual or developmental disability to live the life they choose: help with daily living where it is wanted, teaching and maintaining skills against a support plan, community access, work and relationships, medication administration or prompting within program rules, documentation, and noticing and reporting changes in health or wellbeing. The setting changes the job enormously — a group home shift, a series of supported living visits and a day program are three different jobs under one title.
How much does a direct support professional make?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish a direct support professional occupation, so there is no official DSP median. Two adjacent occupations bracket it: home health and personal care aides at $17.21 an hour or $35,800 a year, and social and human service assistants at $22.08 an hour or $45,930 a year, both May 2025 data. The most specific published figure is the aide median in residential intellectual and developmental disability facilities, $37,340 a year — the highest-paid setting in that occupation.
What qualifications does a DSP need?
Typically a high school diploma or equivalent, a driver’s license where the role includes community supports, a background check and registry checks, and completion of the training your state and program require. Medication administration certification is common but not universal, and whether your DSPs administer medication at all is set by your state and provider rather than by the job title. Almost all of the required training is employer-provided and paid, which is worth saying in the ad rather than listing as a requirement.
Why are DSP roles so hard to fill?
In our 2026 benchmark, behavioral health and DSP campaigns had the lowest click-through rate of the fifteen role families we publish, at 0.75%, and a 9% apply rate. The middle half of campaigns ran from $18.36 to $334.56 per applicant — an eighteenfold spread between employers hiring the same job at the same time. A range that wide says the difficulty is not the labor market but what the posting says and what happens in the hours after someone applies.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring direct support professionals?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where support staff are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment, outlook, duties and education: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Home Health and Personal Care Aides and Social and Human Service Assistants (both last modified August 27, 2026; 2025 employment and May 2025 wage data, including medians by industry), read August 29, 2026. The Handbook publishes no direct support professional occupation; the phrase does not appear in either page. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — behavioral health and DSP role family, 19 campaigns, and the behavioral and education sector, 81 campaigns; advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.