ST. PAUL – Support workers with St. Paul Abilities Network (SPAN) continue to empower individuals with disabilities to help them achieve independence and chase their dreams.
“We focus and enhance people’s abilities,” says Tiffany Brertton, a program team leader at SPAN. While her work primarily involves supporting frontline workers, she also provides direct support to clients.
Seeing people succeed is what keeps her inspired as a support worker.
“I want them to achieve their goals, and I want to be a part of it,” she says.
“It was always just a big passion for myself,” she adds. People with disabilities are capable and they often just need some support, says Brertton.
“I love it when they come to tell me that they’re so happy at what they accomplished. . . I like to see them happy.”
Allison Yopyk, director of career and inclusion support services with SPAN, agrees. She and Brertton do a lot of work in the background, from paperwork and other logistical work, “But the easy part is helping the people we support,” she says.
It's easy because they do not see helping others as a job or a difficult task, explains Yopyk. Having worked at SPAN for over two decades already, it is the people that prompted Yopyk to stay in the field – and that includes both the clients and workers at SPAN.
While she may not directly deal with clients, knowing that the people the non-profit supports are safe and secure, and seeing them succeed in whatever endeavor they follow, is what brings Yopyk satisfaction.
“It’s meaningful to see that work we do make a difference for everyone - and build a stronger community,” Yopyk adds. “It’s nice to see.”
She also expresses her pride in SPAN’s workers for their creativity and resourcefulness while helping people achieve their unique goals.
SPAN Executive Director Anthony opden Dries explains how this means workers approach every individual or client differently due to their varying goals. Much of the work at SPAN involves an individual-centered approach, he says.
People with disabilities, or what opden Dries describes as people with diverse abilities, “are not different than you and I.”
They have dreams “about what their life can be,” and that is what every worker at SPAN hopes to help people achieve, says opden Dries. “That’s how SPAN actually started, as a grassroots organization . . . To help individuals achieve their dreams.”
