AB 1244 by Assembly member Wes Chesbro would give us the CHOICE to keep the services we have now OR to choose Self-Determination.
“Nikita is my 15-year-old daughter.
She tells people, ‘I want an awesome life.’
She wants to go to college. She wants friends and family. She wants a good job. Self-Determination will help her try and get those things in the ways that she chooses. We tried to get Nikita in the Self-Determination Pilot, but she wasn’t chosen. She has been waiting for Self-Determination for 11 years.
AB 1244 will give Nikita that choice.”
– Cathay LiuTo learn more about AB 1244, click here.
Get involved:
Sign the petition to support Self-Determination!
Self-Determination
Self-Determination would give us the freedom to create and control our own services and supports.
Under Self-Determination, we would control the regional center funding that serves us or our minor family member. We would have a life plan that we create with assistance from people we choose, not people who are assigned to us.
The life plan focuses expenditures on key life goals:
- For those living with family, supports to help the family cope with the stress of disability
- For those not living with family, a place to call home where they decide who enters and works for them
- Real community participation
- Real friendships, companionship, and relationships
- For working-age adults, earning money through regular jobs or self-employment.
Self-Determination means we could hire our own support staff or negotiate with an agency for the services that we want, instead of settling for the services that are available.
Self-Determination means we could hire who we want, supervise and dismiss them as we want, and pay them what we want above a minimum level of pay. Workers we hire would be able to organize; this allows them to advocate with us to protect and promote Self-Determination.
California has been “piloting” Self-Determination for 11 years. It is time that all of us in the regional center system be given that choice.
Get involved:
Sign the petition to support Self-Determination!
