History behind the San Diego Regional Center
Self-Determination and Individualized Funding Project "My Life...My Way"
Self-Determination is rapidly becoming a widely recognized term. In order to facilitate any efforts towards "Self-Determination," it is worthwhile to explore exactly what it means and how we have arrived at such a place, here in San Diego, California.
Self-Determination is not a program, a mechanism or a new technology. It is not a new way of "doing business." Self-Determination is both a concept and an end goal. If you are motivated by a desire to enable people with disabilities to reach their full potential, enjoy a better quality of life, receive fair and equal treatment and be treated with dignity and respect, then you have already begun to embrace the underpinnings of Self-Determination.
Self-Determination begins with individuals. Individuals who express an interest in defining for themselves how they will participate in their community, how they will form friendships and with whom, how they will spend their day and what they will choose to learn. Self-Determination becomes real for those individuals who are willing to accept risk and responsibility, knowing that true independence involves both.
Individualized Funding is a separate, but critically related concept. Individualized Funding simply means enabling the individual to make the decisions about funds available to them, to establish their own budget, to support their chosen lifestyle.
The idea of supporting people with disabilities to become more self-determined through the use of Individualized Funding (and brokerage, or independent planning) first took shape in British Columbia in the mid 1970's. At this time, a group of parents, whose children were institutionalized, put forth the idea that their children could engage in meaningful lives uniquely tailored to their needs if they were provided proper supports. They suggested that if public funds allocated to meet individual needs were put in the hands of these individuals and their support networks, they could purchase services and supports on an individualized basis. They further suggested that this would result in greater participation as valued citizens in everyday life. The government in British Columbia supported a proposal put forth by parents to allow control of funds to be transferred to individuals and their support networks. The successful outcomes of this "initiative" served as a springboard to several pilots and initiatives in the United States and other countries.
Increasingly, Self-Determination became a focus of interest:
Here in the U.S. in 1996, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
began to award grants to individual states to pilot similar efforts. A total
of 19 states were awarded grants and today, many more states report some type
of involvement, or interest in this approach, designing and delivering services
and supports in their communities.
On January 1, 1999, Senate Bill 1038 authorized a three-year pilot of Self-Determination
projects in California, with three specifically targeted Regional Centers:
Eastern Los Angeles, Tri-Counties and Redwood Coast. More recently, Kern and
San Diego Regional Centers have requested a waiver of certain legislation
in order to provide alternative service coordination to individuals under
the W & I Code; Section 4669.2(a)(1).
This San Diego - Imperial Counties Self-Determination
Project is
sponsored by the
San Diego Regional Center and Area Board
XIII.
Information Hotline:
(858) 503-4409
