If my child has Regional Center respite hours, would that affect the IHSS hours they can qualify for?

Yes, your child can qualify for IHSS hours if you receive respite hours from Regional Center. According to Public Benefits Specialist Lisa Concoff Kronbeck, "Respite has nothing to do with IHSS because if you're the IHSS provider, you're providing care to your child. Respite is for you, to give you a break. So it's totally separate from whether your child needs assistance with certain tasks."

Similarly, Regional Center cannot deny you respite hours just because your child has IHSS. When you request Regional Center respite, you may be asked to fill out a schedule of when you have support and when you don't to ensure there is no duplication of services. You could list school, day care, social-rec, personal assistance, and other services that cover your child's supervision needs. If your child has IHSS protective supervision hours, that signifies that your child needs 24/7 monitoring, including overnight.

Remember that the need for 24-hour supervision doesn’t give you 24 hours of services a day (there are 720-744 hours in a month, and IHSS only covers up to 283 of them). If you are your child's IHSS provider, you should pay attention to what hours you are writing on your timesheet for IHSS. If you filled out the live-in certification form, IHSS is not going to ask you what time of day you did hours, but keep in mind that you can’t do 12 hours of respite and 12 hours of IHSS in a day.

For more information, see our articles about respite and IHSS.