Direct support professional training in Kentucky is regulated by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services through the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (DBHDID) and its Division of Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (DDID). For providers under the Supports for Community Living (SCL) waiver — Kentucky's primary 1915(c) HCBS waiver for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — staff training requirements are written directly into regulation at 907 KAR 12:010, Section 3.

Under 907 KAR 12:010 §3, SCL direct support staff must complete First Aid and CPR, crisis prevention and intervention training (either DBHDID's own curriculum or a department-approved, accredited restraint-free alternative), and — the centerpiece — all Phase I modules of the Kentucky College of Direct Support before working independently with participants, followed by the Phase II modules within six months of hire. This is one of the few states where a specific curriculum platform is named in the regulation itself rather than left to agency choice.

Kentucky's other major IDD waiver, the Michelle P. waiver, carries a lighter training load: staff must be trained on abuse, neglect, and exploitation recognition and reporting and on the specific needs of the individuals they support, without the full CDS module sequence the SCL waiver requires. Providers serving both waivers should map each staff role to the correct requirement set rather than applying the heavier SCL rule across the board.

Medication administration under the SCL waiver is a nurse-delivered function: unlicensed staff complete a DBHDID-approved medication administration curriculum taught by a registered nurse, and their scores post to the staff member's Kentucky College of Direct Support transcript, keeping the medication record inside the same state system as the core modules.

The delivery model is the critical fact for any Kentucky provider evaluating training options: Kentucky is a state-run, single-platform state. The Kentucky College of Direct Support — a Kentucky tenant of the national DirectCourse/Elsevier College of Direct Support — is named in 907 KAR 12:010, and agencies administer staff enrollments through CDS Sub-Administrator accounts. There is no substitution or crosswalk path for the CDS modules; the only regulatory flexibility is in crisis prevention, where a department-approved accredited restraint-free alternative may replace DBHDID's own curriculum.

Because the SCL core is locked to the Kentucky College of Direct Support, Training and eTracking Solutions does not claim to satisfy 907 KAR 12:010's CDS requirement — no outside vendor can. Where TeTS supports Kentucky agencies is everything around that core: supplemental and elective training that builds skills beyond the state minimum, onboarding content for roles and waivers the CDS sequence doesn't cover, and compliance tracking that brings CDS completions, CPR/First Aid, crisis-prevention certifications, and medication training into a single audit-ready record for DBHDID reviews.