APPENDIX B

Your Rights under the Lanterman Act

Below is a list of some of your rights listed in the Lanterman Act. In addition there are rights listed in the regulations. The list does not include all your rights. It simplifies and abbreviates what the statutes say except where there are quotes. All the manual is about your rights under the Lanterman Act or as a client of a regional center. For more information about rights in a particular area, please review the individual chapters.

The following section numbers are from the Welfare & Institutions Code.

Sections 4502(a)-(j) – Basic Rights/Integration

All people with developmental disabilities have the following rights:

·       Treatment and habilitation services and supports to help you achieve the most independent, productive and "normal" life possible;

·       Services that protect your liberty and are provided in the least restrictive (most integrated) way;

·       Dignity, privacy and humane care;

·       Treatment, services and supports in natural community settings to the greatest extent possible;

·       Participation in an appropriate program of publicly supported education regardless of the degree of disability;

·       Prompt medical care and treatment;

·       Freedom of religion and conscience, and freedom to practice your religion;

·       Social interaction and participation in community activities;

·       Physical exercise and recreation;

·       Freedom from harm, including unnecessary physical restraints, isolation, excessive medication, abuse or neglect.

·       Freedom from hazardous procedures; and

·       Make choices in your own life, including where and with whom you want to live, your relationships with people in the community, how you spend your time (including education, employment and leisure), the pursuit of your personal future, and the planning and implementation of a plan that fits your needs and desires.

Section 4502.1

·       Have DDS, regional centers, service providers and others provide you with the opportunity to make decisions and with information you can understand to help you make choices;

·       Have DDS, regional centers, service providers and others respect your choices.

Section 4503 – Rights of Persons with Developmental Disabilities in State Developmental Centers or State Hospitals or Community Care Facilities

If you live in a developmental center or community care facility, you also have these rights:

·       to wear your own clothes;

·       to be able to have and use your own personal items without sharing with other residents such as your own shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant;

·       to be able to have and spend your own personal and incidental money including at the canteen;

·       to have your own personal place to store your belongings;

·       to see visitors each day;

·       to be able to make or receive calls without anyone listening in or hearing what you say;

·       to have access to the things you need to write a letter such as paper, envelopes, stamps;

·       to be able to send and receive mail confidentially -- that is without someone else reading what you write or opening or reading letters sent to you;

·       to say no to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or “shock” treatment);

·       to say no to psychosurgery (psychosurgery means operations on your brain such as lobotomy, psychiatric surgery, and behavioral surgery that

·       affect how you think, feel or act);

·       to say no to a treatment plan for behaviors that causes pain or trauma;

·       to make choices in all areas of your daily living routines (what time you get up or go to bed), about your companions or friends, or about leisure and social activities and about what should be in your IPP.

Section 4648(b) and Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations Section 50510 - Advocacy

·       A right to advocacy services

·       To go to court to enforce your rights including to say no to a conservatorship.

Section 4620.1 - Relationships

Right to have your relationships with family members respected and fostered.

Section 4640.7(a) – Community Living

Regional Centers shall assist consumers and their families in “securing those services and supports which maximize opportunities and choices for living, working, learning, and recreating in the community.”

Section 4643(a) – Eligibility Assessments

Regional Center’s assessment to determine eligibility for regional center services can take no more than 120 days. A shorter time period – as soon as possible but no longer than 60 days – applies where delay “would expose the client to unnecessary risk to his or her health and safety or to significant further delay in mental or physical development, or the client would be at imminent risk of placement in a more restrictive environment.

Section 4643.5 - Eligibility

Once you are found eligible for services at one regional center, you are eligible for services at any other California regional center.  §4643.5(a).

Once you are found eligible, you cannot have your eligibility terminated unless the regional center can show, “following a comprehensive reassessment,” that the original determination was clearly erroneous.  §4643.5(b).

If you move from the area of one regional center to another, the two regional centers are responsible for “ensuring a smooth transition of services and supports from one regional center to another.” You are entitled to have the IPP developed at your old regional center followed at the new regional center until there is a new IPP developed. If there are services and supports listed in the old IPP that are not available through the new regional center, the new regional center must arrange for a new IPP meeting within 30 days and in the meanwhile, “provide alternative services and supports that best meet the individual program plan objectives in the least restrictive setting.” §4643.5(c).

Sections 4646, 4646.5, 4648(a)(1) – Individual Program Plan Preparation

Both the individual program plan and the services and supports to implement the plan shall be person-centered on the individual and the family and shall take into account the needs and preferences of the individual (and family where appropriate), and shall further community integration, independent, productive and normal lives, as well as healthy and stable environments. The services provided to individuals and their families shall be effective in terms of achieving plan objectives, shall reflect the clients’ preferences and choices, and shall be cost-effective. §4646(a).

The planning team shall give highest preference to services which allows minors to live with their families, adults to live independently as possible in the community and all consumers to interact with people without disabilities in positive and meaningful ways. § 4648(a) (1).

The IPP must be developed within 60 days of a person being found eligible for regional center services. §4646(c).

What is written into an IPP is based on the agreement between you (including those representing you) and the regional center representative at the planning meeting. The IPP includes your “goals, objectives and services and supports purchased by the regional center or obtained from generic agencies” §4646(d). The IPP must be specific about the amount and type of services and when they will start. §4646.5(a)(4). When an agreement cannot be reached at the first planning meeting, a follow up meeting will be scheduled within 15 days – or later at your request. §4646(f). A person who can say “yes” or “no” for the regional center must be at your IPP when final decisions are made. § 4646 (d).

You can require that someone in addition to you be notified of any IPP meeting and to receive a copy of any notice sent to you. § 4646(e).

If you agree or if you ask, the IPP review shall include a review of your health status including your medical, dental and mental health needs. §4646.5(a)(5).

Your IPP must be reviewed and modified at least every three years. If you ask for an IPP review before then, the review must take place within 30 days of your request. §4646.5(b). (If you are receiving services under the HCBS waiver, under the terms of the waiver your IPP will be reviewed every year.)

If there is any part of the IPP with which you disagree – such as the regional center’s refusal to include a service you think you need – the regional center must send you a notice that explains why the regional center did not agree (§ 4701) and explains your right to appeal. §§ 4646(g), 4701.

Section 4647 – Coordination of Services

You have a right to service coordination by the regional center to see that your IPP is implemented. § 4647(a).

You have a right to have a service coordinator assigned to you. If the regional center permanently changes your service coordinator, you must be told within 10 days. You have a right to say you want someone else to be your service coordinator. § 4647(b).

Section 4648 – Regional Center Implementation of IPPs & Integration

The regional center must act to secure the services and supports you need to achieve your IPP objectives. § 4648(a). In doing so the regional center will look first to other publicly funded agencies with a responsibility to provide the service or support before using regional center funds § 4648(a)(8).

In implementing IPPs, regional centers through planning teams shall first consider supports in natural community, home, work and recreational settings. Services shall be flexible and individually tailored § 4648(a)(2).

Service providers rates shall ensure that the provider can meet the special needs of consumers and provide quality supports in the least restrictive (most integrated) setting § 4648(a)(5).

You have a right to have your choice of service provider considered, but your choice is not absolute. The planning team will also consider the provider’s ability to deliver quality supports, needed certifications, etc. and the cost of providing services of comparable quality by different providers. § 4648(a)(6).

If you are living in a community living setting arranged by the regional center, the regional center must tell you your rights in a way that you can understand them § 4648(a)(9)(b).

Your regional center should have crisis and emergency services available to help you remain in the living arrangement of your choice even if you have a crisis § 4648(a)(10).

Section 4641 – Right to Determine Where You Live

You as an adult have the right to determine where you will live. You cannot be moved against your wishes unless there would be danger to your health and wellbeing if you stayed, or there is a court order, or unless your conservator has the authority to decide where you live.

Section 4747 – Moving Where You Live

If you tell the regional center you want to move from a community facility, the regional center must schedule an IPP meeting as soon as possible “to assist in locating and moving to another” place.

Section 4685 – Services And Support In Family Homes For Children With Developmental Disabilities

If you are a child living with your family, getting the services you need to remain at home and be a part of your family and community life is a high priority under the Lanterman Act. §4685(a)(b). Your IPP must include a family plan component that describes the services and supports to help you live in your family home. 4685(c)(2).

Section 4685.1 – Children Living Out Of The Family Home

If you are living outside your home, the regional center must make every effort to place you close to your family home. §4685.1(a). If the regional center cannot do that, the regional center must explain in writing at least every six months what it is doing so that you can live closer to your family.

Section 4687 – Services For Clients Who Chose Relationships, To Be Parents

Like other Californians, you have rights “to have relationships, to marry, be a part of a family, and to parent” if you chose and you have the right to make informed choices in these areas. To help you, services available through the regional center include sexuality training, parenting skills training, supported living arrangements for parents with developmental disabilities and their children, among other services.

Section 4688 – Supports To Help Participate In Your Community

Regional Centers are responsible for expanding opportunities for consumers to have full and equal protection in their local communities including expanding community integration options in work, recreation, social, community services and education. Regional centers may also purchase community facilitation services if your IPP team decides they are necessary for integration/inclusion.

Section 4689 – Supported Living Services for Adults

If you are an adult you have the rights to get the supports you need (as often as you need), to live in a home you own or lease, no matter the degree of your disability, it is a priority.

Section 4696.1 – Access To Mental Health Services

So that you will have access to mental health services when you need them, including emergency or crisis services, the regional center must work out an agreement about coordinating services with the county mental health plan. For instance, if you end up hospitalized, the regional center and the county mental health representatives will get together about discharge planning and implementation of a treatment plan.

Sections 4700 et seq. – Fair Hearing Process

When you disagree with a decision of the regional center not to provide new services or to change or end a current service, you have rights to a notice and to a fair hearing with an Administrative Law Judge.  For more information about your rights in the fair hearing process see Chapter 12.

Sections 4725-4730 – Access to Records

You have a right to access and copy records in your file. §4725. You have a right to review your file at the regional center during business hours within 3 business days of your request orally or in writing. §4728.

Section 4731 – Compliance Complaints

If you believe your rights have been denied or abused including by a service provider, you have the right to file a complaint with the director of the regional center or developmental center. For more information about the complaint process and when you use the complaint process and when you use the fair hearing process see Chapter 12.

Sections 4657, 4658, 4659 – Regional Center Responsibility to Assist You to Pursue Benefits Under Other Programs And Other Sources of Funding

The regional center must get information and investigate and must help you get cash assistance, health care or other services to which you may be entitled.