Self Determination Is Here!

In October 2013, Governor Edmund G. Brown signed Senate Bill 468, authored by Senators Bill Emmerson and Jim Beall and co-authored by Assembly Members Holly Mitchell and Wesley Chesbro, into law. This law, championed by remarkable and determined self-advocates, family members and advocacy organizations, established a statewide Self-Determination Program that adheres to the following principles to ensure those who participate have:

• Freedom – to exercise the same rights as all citizens; to establish, with freely chosen supporters, family and friends, where they want to live, with whom they want to live, how their time will be occupied, and who supports them
• Authority – to control a budget in order to purchase services and supports of their choosing
• Support – including the ability to arrange resources and personnel, which will allow flexibility to live in the community of their choice
• Responsibility – which includes the ability to take responsibility for making decisions in their own lives and accept a valued role in their community
• Confirmation – in making decisions in their own lives by designing and operating the system that they rely on.

After five years of planning, revising, and solidifying the program through a federally-submitted waiver, on June 7, 2018 the federal government has approved funding California’s Self Determination program! Once implemented, 2500 regional center clients in California will be initially admitted into the program and will be open to all clients after three years.

Implementation dates are yet to be determined, so be sure to check California’s Department for Developmental Services’s Self Determination website here. For more information on Self Determination, you can visit the Autism Society of Los Angeles’s page here.