The Support Files

Direct support work is essential—but it is rarely discussed honestly. When DSP services are represented, the conversation often centers on institutions, intellectual disabilities, or situations in which guardians, providers, and other third parties speak on someone’s behalf. Those experiences matter, but they are not the whole story. The Support Files brings another perspective to the conversation. Anna is a self-directed disability advocate with cerebral palsy who does not have an intellectual disability and manages her own support services. Drawing on her experience advocating at the state level, Anna and her DSP, Ari, offer an honest look inside the disability and direct-support worlds—from both sides of the relationship. Together, they break down the laws, policies, funding decisions, staffing shortages, and systemic barriers affecting people with disabilities and the professionals who support them. They also explore what self-direction, independence, community living, employment, and meaningful support actually look like in everyday life. These conversations do more than identify problems. Anna and Ari explain complicated issues in accessible language, share real-life experiences, and offer practical ideas for creating change. The Support Files is an advocacy platform dedicated to educating the public, informing lawmakers, challenging harmful assumptions, and amplifying communities that have been systematically neglected, underestimated, and excluded from decisions that directly affect their lives.Anna is a self-directed disability advocate, writer, content creator, and power-wheelchair user with cerebral palsy. She has experience advocating at the state level and has spent years working to improve disability services, community inclusion, and the way people with disabilities are represented. As someone who hires, trains, schedules, and manages her own DSP staff, Anna brings firsthand knowledge of the staffing crisis and the barriers people with physical disabilities encounter while trying to live independently. Her perspective challenges the assumption that receiving support means surrendering independence, autonomy, or the right to speak for yourself. Ari is a Direct Support Professional with a lifelong connection to the disability community. They have supported people with complex medical needs, intellectual disabilities, autism, physical disabilities, and people without intellectual disabilities. Ari’s life and work have been directly affected by regulations and policy decisions imposed on the disability community—often without meaningful input from the people most affected. Witnessing how these systems intensify the challenges already faced by disabled people and their support staff has strengthened Ari’s commitment to advocacy. Ari has worked in nursing facilities, Individualized Supported Living homes, and private in-home care. These experiences have allowed them to see how disability services operate across very different settings, as well as how staffing shortages, limited resources, inadequate education, and restrictive policies affect both disabled people and DSPs. Currently studying criminal justice and forensic psychology, Ari strives to become a voice for people who are too often overlooked, neglected, or ignored. They bring a valuable frontline perspective to conversations about staffing, advocacy, accountability, dignity, and meaningful systemic change. By combining Anna’s experience as a self-directed disabled person and advocate with Ari’s experience as a DSP across multiple care environments, The Support Files creates space for honest conversations that are too often missing from disability policy and public discussion. These are the stories behind the staffing crisis. These are the perspectives policymakers need to hear. These are the voices too often shut out, neglected, and forgotten. These are The Support Files.