In 2023, Senate Bill 138 required the Department to work with our community to address inequities in how respite services are provided to caregivers. To make the services more consistent across the State, work began on a Family Support Tool that would have been used to determine an individual’s need for respite, day care, and personal assistance services.
As part of this work, current policies and procedures were reviewed and analyzed across all regional centers, and even other states. With this information, we now are focusing on a standalone Respite Tool to determine the need for respite services and how many hours can be approved.
Goals for the Respite Tool:
- Create a simple, easy to use assessment that provides statewide consistency
- Avoiding big changes to the authorized respite hours that individuals and families currently have
- Reduce differences in authorizations among families with similar needs across the 21 regional centers
All regional centers will be required to adopt the Standardized Respite Tool and use it consistently. This means people with similar needs should receive a similar number of respite hours, whether they live in Chico or San Diego.
Regional centers across the state have already tested a draft version of the tool. Service coordinators from each regional center also met twice to discuss, review, and revise the draft tool.
The Department hosted a public webinar about the Family Support Tool project on April 10, 2025. At that time, the Department planned to present a draft tool in June. The timeline has shifted and a draft of the standalone Standardized Respite Tool will be presented at a public webinar on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. Registration information will be shared soon on the Events page and via email.
A 30-day public comment period will begin on that date. People will be able to submit comments via email or through a designated phone line.
Your input will help improve the tool before it is finalized. The law requires statewide regional center implementation of the Standardized Respite Tool no later than January 1, 2026.
Once the Standardized Respite Tool has been adopted, the Department will continue to explore and develop similar tools and procedures for day care and personal assistance services. These additional tools will have goals similar as the respite tool—to make things more consistent across the state and to make sure services are approved more fairly. We look forward to your input on these additional tools!