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"We're Human": An Analysis Of Formal And Informal Training Methods For Direct Care Staff Working With Dual-Diagnosis Populations, Adam Clay Stephenson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Direct care staff, or DCS, are individuals tasked with providing a number of care services to individuals with disabilities in various settings. This study focuses on a group of direct care staff working at a day habilitation program in central West Virginia. Training techniques used to prepare these workers for a diverse array of roles are reviewed comparatively and through a sociological theoretical lens utilizing perspectives from Bandura (1977), Laubach (2005), Marx (1964), and Wolfensberger (1983). Semi-structured interview results indicate that formal training is driven by a less valorous view of disabled individuals as a class than informal training; that …