How Residential Placement Impacts California Public Benefits

Here is a brief rundown of how public benefits change or don’t change:

• If a child in a residential program remains in California, Regional Center services still apply. If the child goes to an out-of-state facility, Regional Center services get put on hold.

• Whether your child can continue to receive IHSS will depend on the type of facility. IHSS hours are not available in an institutional or hospital setting, but IHSS may be appropriate in some group home environments that are aimed at independent living with supports. If you are your child’s IHSS parent provider, you will not be able to claim hours while they are living away from home.

  • If your child visits home, you may potentially be able to claim hours during their visit, but you would not be able to claim a live-in provider exemption for those hours.

• A child can still qualify for Medi-Cal while in residential treatment, but if they’re out of state, Medi-Cal will only cover emergency services.

Will Regional Center pay for residential placement?

As we explain in our main article on residential placement, who pays for residential placement depends on who is authorizing the placement. If the placement is part of the IEP process, then the school district must fund it, whether in state or out of state. If the placement is for medical reasons, such as long-term hospitalization, then insurance is responsible for paying for it, and Regional Center may provide assistance. Note that Regional Center funds only in-state placement.

Regional Center is the payor of last resort, and placement is looked on as school responsibility if it’s not for medical reasons. However, it might be possible to get Regional Center assistance if the school district denies funding some part of it.

Coordinating Regional Center services

Your child’s Regional Center is based on your home address, so if your family moves into a new catchment area, your child’s case will transfer to the new Regional Center. The old Regional Center should coordinate transferring your child’s services to the new Regional Center, including if your child is moving to a new residential facility. If Regional Center is involved in the placement, then they should help with the transfer to the new Regional Center.

If you run into any problems with the transfer, you can reach out to the Office of Client Rights Advocacy (OCRA) for help. Visit this page from Disability Rights California and scroll down to find the OCRA contacts for your Regional Center.

Regional Center support for the transition home

If your child is already a Regional Center client, you won’t have to completely start over when your child returns home from an out-of-state placement. Their services are temporarily on hold until they are a resident of California again.

To prepare for your child’s transition home, contact your Regional Center service coordinator and tell them that they need to take your child’s case off hold.

Keep in mind that some Regional Center coordinators are not aware that this is how it’s supposed to work, so if you are told your child is no longer a client, you can ask for help from the officer of the day. If you need further assistance, escalate to OCRA.

You should then schedule an IPP meeting to discuss your child’s services. Especially if your child has been in residential placement for multiple years, their needs are different today than they were years ago, so reach out to Regional Center to reopen the case and have an IPP meeting.

Can I enroll my child in SDP while they are out of state?

If your child is in an out-of-state placement, they cannot receive Regional Center services, but you can prepare to enroll in the Self-Determination Program (SDP) when they return. In the meantime, you can do the required SDP orientation for parents and start on their person-centered plan, which can even be done remotely. Once your child is a California resident again, Regional Center will take their case off hold, and you can complete the SDP enrollment process.

If my child is expelled from their residential placement, can I use SDP to create their own academic program?

Parents of children who are removed from residential school may want to utilize Self-Determination funds to create their own customized academic program based on their children’s interests and passions. SDP cannot replace school, but it can supplement it.

For clients under age 18, Regional Center will not pay for anything that is seen as the parents’ responsibility, including housing, or anything that is the school district’s responsibility, like classes necessary for a high school diploma. Families can, however, use social-recreational funding to pay for a club or specialized class, like chess or woodworking. You could also try funding tutoring under executive functioning support.

That being said, the I in IEP stands for individualized, so the school district needs to create a program that will work for your child. That could look like doing some classes in person and some online, or maybe the student goes to college, and an aide goes with them to a certain class. The school district is responsible for putting together an individualized program that the child can access and meets their needs. For outside-the-box cases like this, families may want to work with an attorney because schools are likely to push back.