Tricia DePalatis

Tricia DePalatis joined ANCOR in March of 2023 as the Membership Assistant. In this role, she works closely with the Membership Manager to maintain and update member records, respond to user inquiries, and assist members with event registration and payments.

Tricia graduated from Washington University with a degree in Education. She spent nearly a decade teaching middle schoolers in Ecuador, Kuwait, and Colorado. Her favorite parts of the job were building positive relationships with students and witnessing the pride they felt when they made academic and social gains. As much as Tricia enjoyed teaching, she eventually decided to try something different. She worked a few odd jobs before accepting a role as an Early Intervention service coordinator at an agency that is an ANCOR member.

As an Early Intervention service coordinator, Tricia managed a caseload of 45 children who received Early Intervention services. It was during this position that she started to understand some of the issues faced by direct support professionals (DSPs), case managers, and agencies that provide services for people with disabilities. She realized how much harder it was to find providers for children on Medicaid because of low reimbursement rates. She was disappointed that there were not very many opportunities for growth or raises because of a lack of funding on a state and federal level. There were so many children who needed services, but budget crunches made it difficult to give every one of them the care they needed. High turnover forced families to be shuffled from one case manager or DSP to the next. Tricia was fulfilled as a service coordinator but wanted to understand more about limitations impacting agencies like the one where she worked. When she was offered a position at ANCOR, she knew it would be a way to better understand and work collectively to tackle issues impacting DSPs and people with I/DD. Since starting at ANCOR, she has enjoyed learning from her coworkers and ANCOR members.

Outside of work, Tricia loves gardening, running, biking, and hiking with her husband and dog (Lucy) in the Colorado portion of the Rocky Mountains.