What is Regional Center personal assistance?

For teen Regional Center clients, personal assistance (PA) services provides personal assistance to the person with a disability when the parent is not available for reasons that are not work. (If the parent isn't available due to work, then Regional Center can authorize day care (commonly called specialized supervision.)

Many Regional Centers won't provide personal assistance for minors at all, or they'll only provide it as an extenuating circumstance (such as situations where the child's care requires two people). Families can request a personal assistant for a younger child if the need is high enough. It's more commonly authorized when a parent has multiple children who are Regional Center clients. For example, during COVID, some individuals received more personal assistance hours because a parent with multiple children could not serve as the 1:1 aide for both children at the same time.

The PA assists the child, not the parent, and can't be a member of the household if the recipient is under 18 years old. For a child under 18, the parent is expected to assist their child, so that is considered parent responsibility and they can’t be paid. To find out if your Regional Center will provide PA hours for minors, ask your service coordinator or check your Regional Center's purchase of service standards on their website.

If the recipient is over age 18, a parent living in the home could potentially serve as the PA if they are eligible. For traditional Regional Center services, the parent would need to onboard with a agency and pass employment requirements, including a background check and be legally authorized to work in the US. Most Regional Centers allow the client to choose their own PA worker who becomes employed by the Regional Center's agency.

If you've requested PA hours and received a denial, find out first why your Regional Center isn’t funding the services, i.e., their reasoning for denial. You can often discover this at an informal meeting or mediation if you file an appeal. For example, IHSS is a generic resource for personal assistance, so Regional Center might deny on the basis that you already have those hours. You can see if there are unmet hours or hours that IHSS doesn’t cover.

For more information about Regional Center services, see Eligibility Under the Lanterman Act: Regional Center Services After Age 3.