Existing law, the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, requires the State Department of Developmental Services to contract with regional centers to provide services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Under existing law, the services and supports to be provided to a regional center consumer are contained in an individual program plan, developed in accordance with prescribed requirements. Existing law defines “consumer” for these purposes.

This bill would replace “consumer” with “person eligible for regional center services” throughout the act, and would also remove gendered language.

Existing law requires the Director of Developmental Services to develop program standards and establish, maintain, and revise, as necessary, an equitable process for setting rates of state payment, based upon those standards, for in-home respite services purchased by regional centers from agencies vendored to provide these services. Existing law defines “in-home respite services” as intermittent or regularly scheduled temporary nonmedical care and supervision provided in the client’s own home, for a regional center client who resides with a family member, and provides that the services are designed to, among other things, attend to the client’s basic self-help needs and other activities of daily living, including interaction, socialization, and continuation of usual daily routines that would ordinarily be performed by the family members.

This bill would expand the definition of “in-home respite services” to include the provision of that care and supervision in the client’s local community, and would authorize the services to be designed to attend to the client’s appropriate community integration and socialization that ordinarily would be performed by the family members.