The Alaska Alliance for Direct Service Careers is a statewide industry consortium and a member based association of long-term care and direct care providers whose funding is provided by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.

Who works in Direct Service Careers?

Those who work to empower people with disabilities, people with mental illness, elder Alaskans, traumatic brain injuries, and people who work with people in substance abuse/alcohol treatment programs. Officially, the definition includes entry level, paraprofessional, and professional level staff that spend at least 50% of the work day working one to one with individuals needing support. Professional titles include: Home Health Aide, Personal Care Attendant, Mental Health Aide, Counselor, Clinician, Counselor Aide, Early Interventionist, Residential Workers, Recreational Therapist, Employment Specialist – anyone who works with infants, children, adults, or seniors who depend on support to be more self-sufficient.

We believe: That all people who work the above groups of people to empower them and give them the best quality of life possible are professionals and should be treated as such. Each day, you are required to be caring, responsible, timely, maintain confidentiality, hygienic, mature, patient, have a sense of humor, flexible, stable, and be highly communicative – you are a professional and deserve recognition of such.

Our mission is to improve the flow of information to direct service professionals and organizations. Through better networking and advocacy, our hope is we can impact wage and benefits, increase positive public perception of the industry and the individual professional. To do this we partner, encourage, and implement programs to recruit, retain, and train qualified direct service professionals.

We encourage your input into this website! The new website is the result of feedback from you, the direct service professional. To keep the website engaging – we need continual feedback.

We want to thank the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority for their sustained support.