How are public benefits decided when a child's parents are divorced?

Until a court order says otherwise, both parents have equal rights to make decisions about their children. A common court order is for parties to share joint legal custody, wherein both parents have an equal right to make decisions regarding the health, welfare, and education of their child. However, there can be all sorts of legal custody variations, so the specific terms of the court's legal custody order will dictate who has the right to make the decisions, whether certain decisions require mutual agreement, and other issues.

For IHSS, service hours are allocated to the child, not the parents, so benefits are provided in the location where the child resides — even if the child lives in two homes. Both parents can be IHSS parent providers. IHSS hours are dependent on what each specific county allows. If you, as a parent, are not agreeing with orders that are being made, the fix will not come in family court — it will have to be through the request of an administrative hearing.

For Regional Center services, Lanterman Act services are provided to the child as the consumer and can be provided differently in each household that the child lives in. The decision on respite being split between two households is really up to the Regional Center.

For more information, see our full article Navigating Divorce and Co-Parenting Children with Disabilities.