DSP training in New Jersey is regulated by the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) within the Department of Human Services, which sets requirements for Medicaid/DDD-approved provider agencies through the DSP Core Competency Career Pathway — fully effective January 1, 2025 — with the operative training grids published in Appendix E of DDD's provider manuals. The framework covers direct support professionals and their supervisors across residential, day, and community-based waiver services.

Initial requirements are staged from before first contact with individuals through 180 days of hire, organized around eight competency domains. The package includes prevention of abuse, neglect, and exploitation (PANE) paired with an onsite competency demonstration; reporting duties under Stephen Komninos' Law; Danielle's Law training on calling 911 in life-threatening emergencies; CPR and First Aid; positive behavior support; universal precautions; HIPAA; person-centered planning; cultural and linguistic competence; documentation and fraud/waste/abuse; incident reporting; and HCBS settings requirements. Several items pair coursework with an on-the-job competency check, reflecting the pathway's competency-based design.

Ongoing requirements include annual universal precautions retraining, current CPR/First Aid certification, and continued competency verification under the pathway. Because requirements attach at different tenure milestones and renew on different clocks, New Jersey compliance is fundamentally a tracking problem — each staff person's record must show the right module, the right evidence type, and the right date, per Appendix E.

Medication administration runs through a state-defined channel: DDD requires The Boggs Center's six-module "Introduction to Administering Medication" course, delivered on the College of Direct Support platform, followed by an onsite practicum. Like the other state-authored modules, it cannot be replaced with a commercial course.

Delivery in New Jersey is a true hybrid, and the distinction matters. DDD-authored modules are locked to the College of Direct Support, administered statewide by The Boggs Center at Rutgers: life-threatening emergencies (Danielle's Law), Komninos' Law, incident reporting, documentation and fraud/waste/abuse, HCBS requirements, PANE, and medication administration all live there. But roughly ten other topics in the grid are designated "CDS, Relias, or DDD Approved Provider Developed Training" — and DDD operates a formal Alternate Pathway through which an agency submits a curriculum with tests to DDD-WQU@dhs.nj.gov and receives per-agency approval to use it. Agencies are not locked into a single platform for the open portion.

Training and eTracking Solutions supports New Jersey providers on both sides of that line. For the open topics, TeTS courses — positive behavior support, universal precautions, HIPAA, person-centered planning, cultural competence, and more — can be submitted through DDD's Alternate Pathway for approval as provider-identified training, with TeTS supporting the curriculum-and-test submission. And because the locked CDS modules still have to be documented, TeTS records those completions as external evidence alongside the open-market courses, giving administrators one Appendix E-shaped record per staff person instead of exports from three systems.