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Empowering Students and Families: Services of SDRC and EFRC

Added Nov 20, 2024 •

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come to the meeting uh thank you for coming here join us for the knowledge Network meeting today uh today we have uh speakers from uh the San Diego Regional Center and if uh section of Family Resource Center uh represent to talk about this Services first we're going to start with uh speakers from the San Diego Regional Center welcome all right good evening everybody my name is Bill Lacey and I'm a program manager for transition age youth unit here in Carmel Mountain right down the street from this office and we service clients who are 13 to 22 years of age so we're here to talk to you about and I have 2 of my colleagues here as well who are going to also speak regarding uh some of the social wreck non-medical and Camp options that the regional center offers clients who are seeking that type of activity I will begin with social Recreation and then my colleague Jessica will talk about non-medical therapy and then my colleague Ivette will but we'll finish up with camp so I'll start off with the goals for the day well understand social wreck camp and non-medical Therapies understand the intention Behind These services and why I understand the client responsibilities send service coordinator responsibilities and learn the tips tricks from those who have lived experience and at the end will open it to discussion and questions so the goals of services services are designed to enhance the social interaction opportunities and skills which enable the client to become involved in group and individual activities at home and within their community Services should encourage clients to initiate communication with others teach appropriate social skills develop friendships and enhance natural supports 1 thing to be noted of services are not considered services are considered time Limited within periodic reassessment and our intended for clients who acquired the social and behavioral skills identified in the IPP plan or individual family service plan so it's it enables clients to become more involved in in additional integrated social Recreation opportunities so I'm going to talk about who is eligible all status 2 clients regardless of age or living arrangement so that would be if you have an active case with the San Diego Regional answer you are meeting annually either for an annual meeting or an IPP your status to client a person who's still going through assessment a person who's still being determined for eligibility my daughter actually hello I'm Ava I'm a risk coordinator and unit 38 um William lazy my manager so I was saying I have an example my daughter is currently receiving um SRC services so she is a year and a half which is 18 months so she's not status too until she would get diagnosed or not at the age of 3 so that also is another example if they're classified under status too so so there's 3 types of service that we'll talk about this evening social Recreation camp and non-medical therapy I will begin with social wreck social social Recreation opportunities are everywhere and can include programs such as Boys and Girls Clubs wine CA Municipal parks and recreational programs and other generic community activities and services they do providers do not have to be vendored by the regional center just willing to accept a payment through an FMS which is a fiscal Management Service so examples would be martial arts class swimming lessons theater class soccer team baseball league things of that nature that would be considered social wreck in the social Recreation around social Arts swimming lessons Performing Arts Sports League art class music lessons dance class and there's so much more it's really there's no feeling to it you can be very creative we seen um coding school oh for um gaming activities all that would enhance and promote social interactions with others the minimum criteria for social wreck is helping the client access the community in an activity or setting of their choosing a social recreational purposes the client has no socialization or re recreation resources similar available to them there's a need for the service that is identified in the IPP in a specific outcome has been developed to address the need the identified service meets appropriate Home and Community Based Services HCBS regulations so it's an integrated environment you must be vendor through San Diego Regional Center community service department or be willing to receive payment through an FMS uh service and the 1 that we utilize is with Community interface Services which is a vendor of the Regional Center the funding for Trans competition may be offered if needed and would be done through a TSR which is a voucher I'm going to have my colleague give back come in and talk a little bit about camp all right hello again my name is Eva and I'll be speaking about camp services so with camp um and maybe uh utilized by an individual or family as an alternative resource for respit daycare Day program meaning or social recreational experience providers do not have to be vendor just willing to accept a payment through our FMS which of course we talked about is community interface Services right now so Community Services will review new camps to be determined if camps can be vendored and the camps can look anything like summer day camps school break camps overnight camps and now with winter coming uh winter camps as well day camps provider creative experience in outdoor living for a limited period of hours per day and days per year the overnight camps provides a creative experience in outdoor living on a 24-hour per day basis for a limited period of time the minimum criteria for camp services the camp is determined to be appropriate by the planning team the client's ability to participate does not compromise his or her health and safety the selected Compass vendor through sdrc community service department or willing to accept a third-party payee FMS other funding sources have been exhausted including camper ships which are scholarships grants and volunteers to provide inclusion support funding for transportation to and from the camp may be offered if needed and would be due done through a TSR which is again a voucher and then non-medical therapies would go on to our calling hi everyone my name is Jessica mcnick I'm a program manager uh for transitional age youth at our kernie Mesa at our Kearny Mesa Office and we have a lot of clients that we serve um in posd um the third social wreck activity that we fund is called non-medical therapy non-medical therapy includes but is not limited to um art therapy music therapy and equan assisted therapy um providers again do not have to be vendored with regional center but they do have to be willing to accept payment through our FMS um and again Regional centers community services department will these provider providers credentials to determine if their program meets qualifications to provide the service um as we shared some of the non-medical therapies are art music dance equan therapy animal assisted therapy and some additional adaptive programs for music art and dance the providers must have a current registration with the American Music art dance Therapy Association and for special specialized recreational therapies providers must be certified or credentialed in their field the minimum criteria for non-medical therapies the activity is recommended by the planning team for the individual um the selected non-medical therapy provider is vendored through our community services department or if they're not a vendor they are willing to accept payment from a third party FMS um community services staff from strc will ensure that providers meet the standards required to provide non-medical Therapy Services and the funding for transportation to or from non-medical therapy may be offered if needed and again this would be done through a voucher or partial mileage reimbursement the process for requesting Services um so client responsibilities so your responsibility would be to identify a social wreck um provider for the Social Work activity that you are requesting um again our goal for social wreck is community integration so I recommend you look into your community your neighborhood um what the things around you that your individual is going to want to access to be integrated into their community ask the provider um ask the provider if they're willing to become vendored with regional center or if they will accept payment through the FMS um we have a procedure uh we have a bail payment procedure that we can provide to you to share with the provider um it's really user friendly it has a QR code um it will give them in instructions and information on how they can access that and then um you're going to gather some information to provide to the service coordinator such as start date um rate um and other information um because then the team can hear you on that okay planning team I believe it was from 2 sliding that's a great question so the planning team is typically the family the client the parents or the conservator and um their service coordinator there may be additional members to a planning team um in in in case there are other like service providers um if someone's um obtaining a service such as um ilt they might be part of it um you know any other anyone can be part of the planning team but typically it be the San Diego Regional Center service coordinator and the family um so client responsibilities continued so the information you would want to get from the activity to share with your service coordinator would be the name of the social direct provider um confirmation that they will accept payment through our fiscal money service type of activities such as swimming gymnastic dance the activity setting just means is an individual or group um how often is it once a week is it once a week for an hour is it 1 you know 1 Saturday a month cost of the lesson and what that looks like and how the activity will benefit your child and really we are looking for um increasing social skills increasing Community integration um really we want to provide that opportunity for that um social and Community integration um and then again we would we request the start date um the FMS information for potential Pro providers Community interface service is our financial management service they are third-party Bill payer they make payments to the providers um to the social wreck providers their purchase of goods and services is in accordance at strc regulations every provider um every provider the service or activity is to be purchased from must complete and return a payment agreement and W9 to community interface services sdrc pays for ities and service inner rears so just keep that in mind when you are sharing this information um with your social wreck provider um as lots of times these um providers do request payment upfront but the the way we pay is inner ears so they would build invoice and they would get paid after um the provider their invoice must include the participant's name the exact cost of the activity the dates and service of the dates of service and frequency um name provider Merchant or person the item is to be purchased from and a description of the service um Regional Center service coordinator responsibilities the regional center service coord coordinator receives information from the client um they complete a social Recreation screening and referral form and submit it to their manager for review and this is for all this is for Camp social wreck non-medical therapies both vendored and non- vendored for non- vendored the service coordinator submits the form to their program manager um and occasionally these are reviewed by our social wreck team if needed to ensure compliance with purchase of service standards once approved the service coordinator will inform the client if a if approved the service coordinator and parent will complete an admin Amendment IP amendment to add the outcome and the service to their IP and the parent will sign the IPA the Aiden Aiden amendments addendum summary sheet agreeing to the service and then the service coordinator will enter the POS for the services if approved um the services are time Limited they approved for 6 months at a time so we this is time limited um and the service may be um reapp for an additional 6 months um again after the activity ends a new request may be submitted for the social re seem to review um it is also the responsibility of the client family to contact their service coordinator prior to when services are ending to discuss continuing the same activity just to ensure we have enough time to process that request um typically Regional Center is only able to fund 1 social wreck service category at a time so social wreck non-medical therapy Camp though it is possible to have more than 1 of each type of this service this is the planning team discussion and decision and it should be clear that these services are not duplicative so yeah to the point when Jessica mentioned that the client and the parents are responsible for notifying their service coordinator if they want to continue that service that should be done 6 to 8 weeks prior to the expiration of that initial service it requires us about that long to process everything so we need to do the referral again it needs to be reviewed and IPA needs to be generated again a PO West needs to be created which is a purchase of service it needs to be reviewed by the program manager and then sent to the business office the first part of all that can be only a week or 2 weeks it's the following that when it goes to the business office that can take 4 5 weeks because they're inundated with with those types of requests yes continue the question is that uh we have a parent who has a um a daughter who's been receiving services for a year and if she wants to continue does she need to have another IPP done it depends on how often your IP is scheduled if it's done on an annual basis yes if it's done Buy in your try annual then you would only require an addendum at like a list of several options and said it's not on like other adaptive programs use like what other adapt swimming um could be anything that would require more 1-on-1 support versus in a social Recreation it's a little bit more done in a group setting um so an Adaptive would be an example would be music lessons um swimming yes yeah it's yes it would yeah so the the dance thing made a good point the dance would also need to be required vendor because if you're looking for that 1-on-1 1 uh support through an non-medical therapy the vendor would have to be required because there's group dances that would be a social wreck it's very kind of it's kind of in the middle so there's a lot of there's a lot of activities that when you want to have 101 it could be considered as non-medical but it would have to be vented by the Regional Center in order for it to be social as well that's a good question the qu sure the question is is that um a parent has a their son their daughter son son enrolled in STP which is self-determination program and they're looking at an equine um therapy or social wreck um how long is the vendor process to go through and and that would be going through community services that it I don't know I'll be honest with you you know there's a vendor packet that they needed to go through generally speaking there's a at least from my experience a fiscal view of the location I don't know I mean it could be 8 weeks 10 weeks it's been relayed that questions can be put through the Q&A if you're on Zoom um when we need to give as a parent trying to attend a learning conference for diagnosis the question is what does a parent need to do to attend a learning conference regard diagnosis the conference needs to be vendored by the regional center it needs to be local so if you have such a conference in mind check with your service coordinator to see if it's vendored um there are I'm sure exceptions to that um as they're generally is for almost anything um but they need to contact their service coordinator to see if it's currently vendor who is already um RC vendors that they could explore you can check the Regional Center website for providers generally speaking there's not a list that's floating out there um if you have a a a an activity in mind contact your service coordinator and they can do that leg work for you that's all that was in the zoom or over it any other yep there's more you mentioned there that QR code or and I love the 2 slides that I'm going to break down the FMS process is that on your website simply when you read it or I don't know if it is service coordinator can yeah I don't that's a great question and um I could look into that for you if you like you can leave me your contact information and I can look into that but off the top of my head no but your service coordinator would be able to get that information but be give me information I'll make sure of course so the question was is the QR code for um FMS on the San Diego Regional Center website and the response is um I don't know so um I would I would immediately contact your Source coordinator for them to research that for you and then the the the parent in the room that suggested that we should have it on our website and I would probably agree with that so more information given the more access ability there is MHM so hello again as a service coordinator I would say to contact your direct service coordinator um not that we have a list that we can give to parents but because it's all tailored to the individual we don't want to be like oh here's a list choose from this because we want to be able to give them what they want in their Community or say they're already participating in a community um activity we would also we do have a PDF a community interface um like the social wreck the W9 the procedures that we do send out to the families so I and there's a Spanish version there's an English version and I think they're working on getting it in different languages but we can also um send it to a parents email and that way they when they go to the company or the activity or wherever they can say do you guys accept the third party payee and they usually take it with them or take the PDF on their phone and that has made it easier for families out in the community to ask so for example your daughter I was going to ask um do they accept a third-party payee because I know vendor for the for for therapy can take a little bit as long as they accept that third-party pay it could still be um an activity that she could participate so yeah question I don't see anything but you want to make an announcement if there's anything else they're just to let people know yeah so we still have time to have a questions answered by the send the original Center representative so if anyone on Zoom or here in the room that have a question this is a time to ask hello um so we are not able to type online I don't know it's only me all right so I think everyone muted okay go ahead question so my daughter has a 90 she's uh just almost 18 I understand that there's some of the process to switch over to digital Center supporting us but I what the process is and how it goes about about so that's why right yeah so we have a question from a parent here in the room that the daughter is 18 and just had IEP and they wanted to know uh to switch to to our regional center service and what process will be it it it varies on which path your daughter is going is she diploma bound okay so if she's diploma about she wants to meet with her service coordinator um have a planning team meeting and discuss what options are available there's plenty of options here there's employment there's continuing their education uh and a lot of that is partnered with Department of Rehabilitation to provide some assistance with that but it's important that you contact your service coordinator so you can start planning it out because oh okay all right so you thanks um so you want to contact our main office okay and you can find that on the website that is on the website is the main office phone number and you want to ask for the intake department and they will take it from there I can so the question is um to describe a little bit about a client who is 18 and what they could do from that point on and so there's a couple paths a client can go if their diploma bound um then they could graduate from high school and then enter the workforce or continue through their education and they're usually partnered with the uh Department of Rehabilitation to provide some of those resources but they're always with their service coordinator who's going to help make that path possible if they are not diploma bound and they can go to ATP transition program either I think the braccus here so with Dean whis over to brais uh and they would still help educate your son or daughter for the next 4 years so from 18 to 22 okay and that's available as well through there as as if that's what's in the IEP that answer that is there a difference like is not yet you need to you need to do it now before 18 years old right so the further that question is I'm just going to say that if a parent wants to have their son or daughter or assess it has to be done by the age of 18 years old you okay because it's vital because it found eligible to have services for life free well technically okay mhm mhm and then just to clarify um just because your individual or your son or daughter has an IEP doesn't mean like they have to have an APN an IP or they can have they could have had Services they like last year if you would have enrolled them because it's that it's the individual educational plan so that's through Hawaii Unified School District and we're our own entity with our individual program plan or the if P which is the family plan so it's not like you have to have this and it ends and then we jump into this so it's the smoother transition now that you have the number make that call get them eligible and then you know if she does go on to 22 then you would be able to continue your IEP services and have sdrc and again I'm with the transitional age unit so we usually go to IEPs that's where we start doing the the planning team meetings when we go to that see where her needs are at that way like my program manager stated we can see what route is best for the individual if it's a tailor day which is kind of something that it's a 1 to 1 if it's a day program and all of that is kind of addressed in that planning meeting add 1 more thing um because we're the audience here is I assume you know 10 to 22 years old clients perhaps and so younger I'm sorry 4 and a half okay well what I'm about to say won't be a a won't be a blind to you but you know there's a lot of there's new options now I'm gonna this is something completely separate from social work and it's an employment program that is new to Department of Developmental services um and it's called coordinated career pathways and it is designed to help mainstream those will first clients who are being compensated at a subminimum wage so for years back starting in the late 70s into the 80s there was the movement of clients beginning to work in their Community but employers were looking at what incentives would be be better for them and so they were um eligible to pay the client based on that productivity at a sub minimum wage okay so less than minimum wage well that's gone on for for decades now and starting January 1st of 2025 that will be gone everybody will be deserving of earning minimum wage or higher a program that's being implemented to help segue that for those clients who getting paid the 7 wage is I said coordinate for a Pathways and it's designed it's a Time limited Employment Program to possibly segue them into a lesser supported Employment Program and for clients who are 5 within 5 years removed from that sub minimum wage setting and those clients could be 20 30 40 50 years old they're they're eligible for that but for people in this room and on Zoom for clients who are still in school they're eligible now from 2 years being removed from graduating so if you have your daughter who's 17 right now she's at 16 perhaps we would at least look at it or for clients who are in ATP and are going to be graduating at 22 they're eligible at 20 so 16 to 22 this is a program that's time limited 18 to 22 months based on the planning team decision okay and we have a few vendors right now it's still just kind of gaining momentum I'm on this team and it's gaining more are you on the team too yeah okay and and so it's building momentum where clients are starting to assist clients to get back in the community and get employed and so they're getting employed and then if they require some job coaching will connecting with the support Employment Agency in the community such as options for all or TMI or Community interface there's an umbrella of them and they provide job coaching so it's a good program to help individuals get back in the workforce and get momentum going to the next level so when you're meeting with your service coordinator everybody's been trained on it in the agency and that's something that of interest to you bring that up to them any other questions oh set 4 years old okay I don't have the rest of my classroom let's see what they're asking um that person gonna expand as as program managers but just can I see an array of social Recreation requests which are pretty cool I'm going to tell you and I mean some of them like I want to go to that you know and and a lot because from Hockey Camp or to or to baseball Little League you know they will pay for that um and or surf camp it's a pretty cool stuff and it's getting them back in the you know more integrated in their community uh working with the peers and non-disabled peers as well I think they were just chiming in that their child was not the a the initially describing their child before years I don't think it was a question I think it was a state it's a little bit there okay so 1 more question on the way yeah so the question was um is it common see with Summer upcoming um is it question is it common to see requests for camps in addition to a social back activity absolutely um so you can have at least 1 of each you can have 1 of each so 1 Camp 1 social wreck 1 non-medical therapy at a time um and absolutely um as bill was saying in the summer we have surf camps um we have YMCA camps we have um you know whatever Camp is in your neighborhood in your community you can reach out to them if they're not already um working with thus um you know first you can ask your service coordinator if they are already working with us as a vendor or as accepting that third party payment um if not you can provide them with that information and like we said that QR code to see if they'd be interested in working with us and then we can fund that cap but absolutely there are camps coming up next week for the holiday break um that kids are accessing during their time when they're not in school um so same with the break in December there are going to be camps um like that I've had individuals um go to a Sleepaway Camp over Halloween um really cool yeah like a Sleepaway Camp um I think it's in Vista just you know camps all over so we are definitely part partnering with camps um day camp summer camp so um again whatever's it's really individualized whatever your child's going to benefit from what you think is going to help them um the integrated into the community increase their social skills um be around non-disabled peers um you know anything you can think of that's going to benefit please bring it to your service coordinator and we'd be happy to explore it if you want to just let everyone know we're going to do a quick explanation review and presentations here and see there are a lot of good information from the sending original Center thank you so much okay okay next we're going to have a I will forget but to meet you right that's what people say we're gonna switch over to the exception of Family Resource Center we have Joe and Maura to do the presentation welcome as always next month good evening how's everyone doing tonight nice to see those of you that are here in person um we are efrc and as you can see there we are a agency it's been around since 1990 so for the last 33 years we've been supporting providers families Educators in San Diego and Imperial County through information referral and resources and we are as it says right there um for parents staff by parents so everyone who works at our agency is either the parent family member or an individual with a disability themselves so we felt those same emotions we've navigated through those same Services we've encountered similar concerns and feel perfectly equipped to welcome new families and help guide families through the process my colleague Mar Will introduce herself in a second but I'm Joe goyos I've been working with families and individuals with disabilities for the last 25 years I came into the disability world through my father who became paralyzed or limited mobility and wheelchair user when I was 15 and since then every job I had was pretty much in the disability world I was a recreation aide then I was a director of a structured Day program and then I stumbled into a parent Center and that kind of changed my life I saw parents that moved Mountains for their children and when they did that they not only benefited their child's life but the lives of many other children who were able to come behind them and take advantage of some of those programs that they started so my exwife was an academic we moved around and then ended up in California and came into this world um so I'm the child of a person with disability I'm a professional working in the field when my daughter was born 15 years ago it would be 16 this Friday she had a speech delay and that was taking care of the medical model and and now as a sophomore at Mount Carmel High School she's on a 504 plan and has some emotional concerns and then myself I've had dyslexia pretty much my whole life but in 2020 1 I can't even remember I Had a Brain Injury so I ended up also becoming kind of 2 ways a person with a disability and that's a little bit about me how I came to this field as a parent as a child as a profession and as a person with disabilities myself and I'll let my colleague more introduce herself now hi Mora all Britain I'm not sure if I'm on camera okay sorry it could be a bad angle um anyway thank you for being here or here and let's see I did not come to this through all of the good story um a little over 30 years ago I had a child which is a lot of our uh entry into uh the disability community so I have 5 children uh everyone of them has some kind of a disability uh 2 of them are Regional Center consumers 1 is 30 1 is 21 um and my youngest child is 16 so do the math 14 years of and uh continuing anyway both Joe and I are program Specialists and we will keep going do I just hit this woohoo um it would be helpful if I was on the right page when it hm what did you do anyway so Joe and I talked a little bit about us we are not the only program specialists at um efrc but this is kind of Who We Are what we um help we operate we are as Joe said parents who have been there walk the walk talk the talk um Joe and I are both trained mediators um both of us attended the national conflict resolution center um and then I have also been trained at Pepperdine University for their mediating the litigated case we are both IEP facilitators trained by key to Ed um on staff we have Arabic and Spanish interpretation available um and then we also can we have a vendor that provides us with any other language as needed um if you are a CAC member on this call um 6 years of um being a CAC chair at San Diego unified so we do bring that and um both Joe and I are um participating in cac's across both Imperial and San Diego County uh we are Workshop presenters we are contributors um particular lie right now we are doing the high quality IEP project with the East County selpa Special Education local plan area uh we also are both Joe myself and then another colleague Elena I have all completed the guideline um training for independent facilitators and then um we are also on another project with lots of acronyms it will sound a little bit like CCP but it's not it's the Switz project it's also called the P so sweetie stands for subminimum wage to competitive integrated employment CSP I think career support program but I could be wrong don't hold me to that that is a partnership that is available through the San Diego Community College District and the Department of Rehabilitation for San Diego Regional Center clients so um with all of this kind of experience um I guess I should also say I'm acre trained so customized employment come ask me a question yay and Joseph so it's more a suspension we are all over the place we work with all kinds of folks so we work with self position special education local plan areas um we attend all the meetings of the 6 or 7 around us um we collaborate with the San Diego Regional Center you'll see in the slide but we are the entry point for California early start for San Diego and Imperial counties we are part of the Family Resource Network of California we are 1 of the first 12 family empowerment centers that were funded and they have finally been fully funded and there are now 33 of them process date we partner with cbos we work closely with disability rights Community Based organizations we partner with disability rights California The Legal Aid Society of San Diego office of clients rights advocacy among many others um we work with service providers we work with Healthcare so we are kind of like the 1 Center Hub of a wheel and sprockets but we kind of collaborate with all these to try to make families movement transition and navigation of those easier and so there's the who we work with and then who we work for and so we are a little bit unique and that we work for parents okay um a lot of the service agencies the client is the client you're kind of along for the ride you might be facilitating but um for a parent organization we are we provide services that are family driven that are hopefully you'll find culturally responsive um we partner with Community agencies as in the wheel before but what we um when we meet with a family that is a credential experience and it is Family Choice so like again being family members we recognize that it's not about like what is moral want what is Maura thinks right for your child it's what do you think is right for your child and our job is to provide information resources and support so that you can identify the pros and cons of the various things that you are considering for your child so as I mentioned we are the increased spot for California early start um but you see there is the phone number for our agency and the regional center when a family calls in with concerns about their kid they are connected with 1 of our efrc family support liaison which will do an intake with them and then assist them with support and resources as the process moves forward this is a new group we just started and it is early start parent child group it's launching soon if you scan that QR code it'll take you to a Google form where you can put in your information and they'll notify you they're going to be starting up soon and their intent is for the first couple they're going to meet once a month after the first 3 months they're going to be having play dates um at a local park and the idea is to create a sense of community among the parents and the primarily build that the parent support and they are also going to plan on having some outings to different places as the groups yes the question was what is the age group and it's under 3 for events here in this group yes there's other events we're going to talk about now that are open to everyone so um we're moving into older kiddo time um a lot of folks that have heard of efrc think of us as kind of that California early start um and we you know obviously do a little but more than that and so um we do serve individuals and their families of all ages um even receiving pregnancy people find out that they may be having a child with a disability we receive calls from that point all the way through the lifetime life cycle so um we are kind of in it for the long run with families um we're going to start to kind of talk about some of our other programs and again we because of the way we're funded we have kind of an early start which is under 3 and then there's kind of everything else so that family Empowerment Center and Family Resource Center funding so anyway um talking about pretty much over 3 from here on out um this is releasing soon this is a set of 5 different very short videos um it's a topic that most parents don't really want to talk about um but we thought it's um worthy of some exploration so we have a set of 5 videos and English we also have a set of 5 videos in Spanish that talk about the process of we're starting with residential placement and specifically residential placement through San Diego Regional Center and when I say residential placement that is in a community care license facility um or an ICF Intermediate Care Facility I think are my acronyms um we also the English version is giving subtitled in Arabic Vietnamese Chinese Tegala and farsy so it should be maximally accessible um so that families can get that support it's not a popular topic because it is um having gone through the process um 1 of the most painful things that you go through in your entire life and to try to make that in any way um less painful for another family is really where this project arose from so morale was just talking about that video series that's coming up and we have another series of videos we have a YouTube channel where we've cataloged a lot of the trainings we've done and we add to it in month-to-month but we have like IEP Basics and that's in English and Spanish on there which was a workshop we used to offer monthly but now that it's up there we've been getting more specialized and more we'll talk about the specialized training we have coming up in a second which is called steering toward success but we have things on Cal Abel which were in English and Spanish and those are special savings account for individuals with disabilities we have IHSS workshops in English and Spanish we have several series of videos about OT that are exclusively in Spanish and we have this series of videos which tomorrow we'll talk a little bit about in a second called parent hacks and the idea was kind of loosely based off of like life hacks and figuring out a way to work around things and for those videos we have them on water safety getting through TSA if you're traveling with a child has a disability dealing with holiday stress and all that kind of stuff so 1 of the other videos we have in there that's pretty cool uh the previous slide shows you Mario and he's 1 of he's our interpreter and our language access person and and he developed a training which is on here on how to make the best out of interpretation services and then I added a video for Spanish-speaking families which teaches them how to turn on the closed captioning in YouTube and then how to use the innate tools built into YouTube to then translate those subtitles into Spanish and that's on there as well and we're constantly adding to it as we have more and more trainings but that QR code will take you to our YouTube site Channel so transition padlet um how many folks here are familiar with tablets okay cool hey you'll see more of them there she is the creator of the most amazing patents around but a padlet is a way of organizing information and resources and if you you scan this QR code you'll go to our transition padlet and what you see there are several Columns of resources and information and some of like the topic headings of the columns are Education and Training adult life work preparation self advocacy resources but then within there we have them in English and Spanish different resources that families can click on as they're preparing for the transition process so they can get more information okay if you want to just go ahead and respond just want to quickly jump in that parents wants to know if um the slide is going to be added uh we have a on the uh home UniFi special education homepage we have a section is parent ambassadors and under that section we're going to have a video resources so all of Prior uh recordings to recording slides going to be uploaded uh the zoom meeting is going to be uploaded as well so uh for whoever missed it or needs to refresh they can always go to the website and refresh them thank you thank you Regina so we also do family support activities and when you see on the left there is a picture of the Down Syndrome Association Buddy Walk we participate in that um also you see an icon there for the family summer Bash that's a party we do in the park in the summer um is a Spanish support we have for families have children with autism that meets at East Lake Church in Chula Vista um parenting I mentioned that there were a little while ago and then we have the efrc disability pride month challenge yet another 1 of Mora's Creations Mora is the better half of Mojo that's me Moe and Joe and she is the better half of Mo and she but she created this idea of when disability pride month came around a developing a challenge which we do through social media where every day we post a different activity it could be watch a video connect with a person promote employment and she has updated it every year we just went through the second year and it's pretty amazing so if you follow us on YouTube or Instagram you'll be able to see that when it's July yeah so you'll be able to see that when we posted the end of that the other thing we do is office hours and this was Loosely based on on the college days where you could just drop into a professor's office during a certain time and ask any question so it's now going to be changed and we're looking for a new kind of like logo it's going to be parent hours but we do 1 week from 12:1 and the following week from 8 to 9:00 p.m. and it's myself Moira another 1 of our program Specialists our language access person available and we just provide the zoom link we sit there anyone who registers drops in any question you have whether it be a ipps ifps ipps IEPs itps ipe did I miss any um but any kind of question will help guide families there and then usually will follow up with an email providing them with the resources we discussed during the meeting so in a second you're going to find out about another wonderful thing Maura has developed which was this book Circle but as I mentioned earlier I have dyslexia I do not enjoy reading I am an artist I like to paint so when more it was coming up with her idea of she loves books she reads like a book a day so when I was thinking of something that I could do that I loved I was like I'm gonna start this art group so we developed this thing called connect and create where we bring families together and do a little bit of self-care have some fun and we do different art projects tomorrow night we are having 1 which is going to be flying hearts they're going to be painting the kind of part design there on the side there's still 9 slots available on the registration so it'll be at our offices which are at 6367 Alvarado court on San Diego State's campus office 350 nope no parking permit um so you can follow that link and register all supplies are provided all the services are free um and we'll create something fun and have a great time doing it I may be giving away the 1 I'm making yeah everything for upcoming events the question was if on our website we have a area where you can sign up to get information and the answer is yes that's 1 of the few things our website does do but we are in the process of updating our website yep go to the main homepage go to the bottom it asked for first name and an email and then you'll get added to the mailing list on their weekly site on this card and all of that special language for our guests on the wiki site that the regional center has you'll be able to find all of our postcards okay um so books Circle we are in our third year the joy is we are reading a book that is a series of essays written across the Press disabilities across topics and each month we read 1 of them so they're each Standalone which means that we are constantly like people come people go and it is um we have a morning group the first Tuesday of the month at 10:30 they are 1 hour long the tend to be 2 pages to maybe 12 Pages um no he said perfect for a dyslexic reader um and then we have an evening group that's the first Tuesday of the month at 7 pm again 7 to 8 um we're pretty solid on making sure it's 1 Hour 1 hour only um if RC does male the book um if the family is interested in participating um we provide the facilitation at these um group and basically the folks that show up uh provide the thoughts and observations and connections and so it's I think it's fun Joe thinks it's fun he comes anyway um and so again and perfectly happy to have anyone join you will not have missed anything and it is really a nice space I think for a for discussing disability which I think perhaps our society doesn't do a great job of talking about disability and it's a place to get better at talking about disability uh Joe mentioned that we have steering towards success this is a 9-month series we have done parent concerns we've done the bell curve we have done goal writing the next 1 is discussing and negotiating Services which is when everybody starts to come to all of our programs um so anyway if you'd like to attend pre-registration is required and there is 1 every single month uh so please feel free to join us and again all of our services are free um and the other thing I do want to add is there's a lot of people giving IEP trainings there's folks that give them who have maybe an advocacy angle there's certainly folks that give them that are coming from you know education we're coming from a place of parents so like how do we make this understandable so that folks can access the information without being overwhelmed by maybe the legal pieces or the it depends answer so a little plug for this oh thank you and all of our programming that involves language with the exception of the book Circle because the book is not yet available in Spanish but we have asked the publisher to please consider that um we automatically have simultaneous Spanish interpretation like our sorry yes interpretation built in um and any other language just ask and we usually ask for at least 72 hours because then we have to work with some contracts um our newest well 1 of our newest um Family Support activities is called mindful motion it's definitely the 1 with that's like the best t-shirt I think that would be a great t-shirt um our next session is 10 mm on Tuesday January 28th and that is only because we had 1 today so um and we're taking December off this is if you think about like walking as a group trying on a meditation practice just for a short period of time um being able to know that it's an accessible walk or roll and that it's probably not going to break a sweat if you exercise every day but for other people this is like time to enjoy the beautiful place we live and make those connections with other families and sometimes with professionals so um this is a list of the things that we help families understand stand with an eye toward um kind of school topics I think some of I'm gonna not talk about the slide as much as just what does efrc do well and I think we are really excellent at helping families when they have an education problem sit with it look at it and decide is this a general education problem or is this a special education IEP problem and so many families have a little bit of both and helping them sort out who who can help me resolve this issue where am I going to go to get support um those are things that we're really good at sitting with families we're also really good at sitting and looking at an IEP with a family and really walking through what does this say um I would say at least once a week I have a family say I'm mad that fill in the blank and I'm like okay let's look at the IP we look at the IP and the thing isn't in there the thing that everybody is like upset about was never written in the IEP so so once we can identify that then that's an easy request that's go to the IEP team and let's talk about the issue that isn't in the IEP um I would say the other thing that we are good at is giving an alternate perspective sometimes that will feel very much like Playing devil's advocate like did you consider that the school feels this or did you consider that this might look this way and you know some of us had good friends that did that and like and had like boisterous conversation about that but that is another perspective effective and I think it makes families ready to go into an IEP meeting with a little bit more um a better ask let's say um and then the other thing that we help families with is that we get it so there's not that like judgement and there are certain the I understand you want the best for your child and you're in a system that doesn't recognize the word best so um go okay um our steering are you let me start back over are your searing towards success program virtual or virtual thank you for the question the question was steering towards success is it live in person or is it virtual it is on Zoom um right now we'd love to make it live but right now Zoom and so we also support access to the regional center and generic services so as I mentioned earlier if your child's under 3 and you have some suspected kind of like concerns about your child's development we are the entry point but also we get calls folks that have kids over 3 years old that are looking to apply so we help them kind of get through the application process we get calls from folks that are already in the system looking at STP or the self-determination program we are both been trained as she mentioned earlier mentioned earlier as independent facilitators so we can help through that and we also help in helping families find genetic Services if you don't know what generic services are they are public services offered by public agencies to the general public so that could be your school district that could be IHSS that could be C CS California children services and things of that nature among others and so um I'm gonna do a quick going back to Regional Center something that we get I'm just kind of circling back just because of who's on the call um 1 of the things we spend a lot of time with families about is really looking at that idea of regional center eligibility yes Regional Center when they're up there are like you know fill out the application it's fine we do recognize that there are like 5 categories of disability that are eligible and so I'm just because that came up in the last presentation I figure we may as well mention it and I plus I have people to help me if I get it wrong um so for an individual to be eligible for Regional Center Services they need to will have an intellectual disability a diagnosis of autism diagnosis of epilepsy cerebral palsy or what's affectionately called the fifth category and that is a known diagnosis that um requires the same sorts of interventions as an intellectual disability would okay um so that's just 1 part though getting that diagnose this piece the second um prong of Eligibility means that the person has a substantial impairment in correct me if I'm wrong 3 at least 3 for that when he talked about status too eligibility they have to have at least um a substantial impairment in 3 of the following learning communication self-care a capacity for Independent Living self Direction mobility and I think economic self-sufficiency safety is a new 1 so they've added an 8 okay so you have to be able to not only show this diagnosis piece but you have to show or discuss um or have someone evaluate that that other piece is also so everybody who has an IEP does not necessarily have meet the eligibility criteria for San Diego Regional Center so there is a small mini uh in service okay next back to our thing um we developed this for the Switz project again that's our the minimum wage to competitive integrated employment um this and I know 1 of them is being hidden by the spring sharing um this kind of divides up the kinds of resources that we we support families with as they go through this transition age youth 2 adulthood and so you see again how Joe was talking about generic Services I would say they're generic responsibilities like basic citizenship like jury duty things like Selective Service those kinds of things we are able to support amilies through um and all these other and again we have the little something else because every single day I would say we get a question that we've never thought about and that goes with our information resources support you ask a question we're going to go figure it out which is why I was asking for the QR code okay so when should you reach out to us so I'm gonna for accessibility read the slide but you should reach out to when you would benefit from navigating and connecting to generic and Community Resources services and supports you should also reach out to us when you would like to connect with other families when you require training supports that are not available within your agency when you have complex needs that require enhanced support due to language culture and other barriers and as Maura mentioned we have folks on staff to speak English Arabic French and there's a couple more languages but I'm not exactly sure where they are there's 1 person speaks like 5 languages so they're they're like uh they're the ringer on our team but um and then finally when you're seeking neutral or external perspectives and more I talked to we or can be a person to kind of like do some reality testing and kind of like sometimes check um make sure that you have a outside perspective as you mentioned we're both trained mediators and we kind of like can provide an unbiased opinion on what we're seeing so if you want to contact us that phone number there is a voicemail I list the messages every morning sometimes it gets delivered to a second mailbox and that gets forwarded to me but we hear them every morning and then we assign books the call back there's an online form on our website says contact us and that gets sent to our director but I would say if you want to reach out directly to Maura or myself there's our emails if you're a Spanish speaker send the email directly to me if you're an English speaker so directly or more know you can send me English stuff as well and then um Joyce Clarke is our co-director and if you have any resource there or efrc requests overviews you can email her as well if we need 1 we will get 1 through our provider that we use but we don't have 1 on and then if you want to see our events that will take you to our efrc calendar um you'll be able to see everything that's going on all the upcoming um workshops book club mindful motion all of that kind of gets put in there connecting creates we do 1 a quarter so they're not as regular as the other ones but those are all in there as soon as they're scheduled and then we have have Facebook that's a place to get some pretty up-to-date information we mentioned our website is pretty archaic I would say and um we can update this much easier so we're constantly putting up our new information on Facebook and Instagram and we have LinkedIn page 2 and while you're at it you should probably go to our YouTube channel and click subscribe and then you'll get a notification when we add any new videos um so we also participate in conferences for almost done folks there um so this is the youth leadership Forum San Diego versus the Statewide youth leadership Forum this is for transition age youth I believe you have to be 16 um and I think all the way up to 19 I'm looking to Regional Center only because they should just know everything right what is it 13 to 22 is your department but youth leadership Forum I think is a little narrow yes um so we are trying to get a conference together for youth young adults um for this coming I believe 2025 the planning committee anybody wants to join it we're always looking for more participation especially from educational partners it was a good try wasn't it thank you um anyway so here is some of the community conferences that we support um the self-determination and action is bold obviously from 2023 but it's kind of a placeholder um and we leading the charge is typically a little bit more of that transition age youth to Adult Services um involved exceptional parents day we'll have some save the dates on the next slide and I'll let Joe talk a little bit about the others so the fiio partnership is the group of individuals that gets together to provide a conference that's targeted for Spanish speaking families but there are interpreters that offer workshops into English and every once in a while there's a workshop in English that's interpreted into Spanish because we just couldn't find a presenter for the topic that was requested by families in Spanish but that happens just about October November of every year we just had 1 and then the Imperial verily parent conference has conference we partner with out in El Centro in conjunction with the icoe Imperial County Office of Education to provide the families out there with information on all kinds of topics around the IEP process this year it's going to be a little bit different and instead of having individual sessions everybody's going to be in the main room and the theme is going to be the power of possibility and then there's going to be panels for the whole group it's going to be the power of possibility at home the power of possibility at school the power of possibility at work and the power of ability in the community and that will kind of be the 4 main topics and everybody will be in the same room kind of learning together and we try to do that as much as possible in Spanish uh and we do offer quite a bit in English as well and I think tomorrow is going to be leading 1 of our panels he volunteered she volunt she was a volunteer people first conference do you want to talk about it yeah yeah you know better than I did I wanted to really appreciate hard work yeah we're very shy um the people first conference is held it used to be every year I think it might be and every other year this is for adult individuals with developmental disabilities um it is really awesome and it is 1 of the conferences that can be support that is largely reported I should say by San Diego Regional Center uh conference funding for the individuals attending um I want to note just because I feel like I'm getting telepathy that does not include hotel room that is just the conference fee um the registration so um it's super fabulous it's planned um by the people first committee and just know that it's something you can there's a dance there's food there's um I'm trying to remember what they called it's not a resource fair but it is a resource fair but it's cooler than a resource Fair and just an oh sorry area and IEP they are also a vendor iced conferences um and so oh 1 of our slides disappeared oh well we had saved the dates um so I'm going to go through those really quick I think leading the charge is on February 2nd oh April 2nd let me do it this way self-determination conference we think tentatively March 12th 2025 leading the charge in San Diego April 2nd 2025 and then involved exceptional Parents Day Conference May 17th 2025 data and so we have little time for Q&A and feel free to ask questions for Regional Center because they're still here can I stop share their oh you have a turnabout is fair play I guess um in our in our unit of actually all 3 of us we come across a lot of down to our have a lot of questions pertaining to server ship participation and social so um let's talk about conservatorship first so conservatorship was number 1 um we do have staff that have gone through the process for their own children we also have staff that have done more of the supported decision-making model um which is of course getting more and more legal support now um so either 1 of those we try to connect them with a family that can talk from the position of family like what is it going to be like to go through a conservatorship um process some tips and tricks kind of along the line of we want to make it easier um for families to engage with these different social institutions um with regard to SSI or SSDI so that's supplemental Security income Social Security disability insurance I hope um we have another colleague so between us um we we do our very best to give answers we are not let me go through what we aren't financial advisors we are not lawyers we are not Educators we're not Physicians we're not mental health professionals so like take that with we hand point you in the right direction and we can give you resources we can give you information we cannot fill out the forms for you um and that's the very real sometimes that's a need and then we turn back and try to engage with regional center to bring on some additional supports that's the case did I answer your question okay and did I repeat the question context and again the doors open for San Diego Regional Center and except for family resources I just wanted to clarify the individuals who have 1 of each postal therapy team at the so the question on the floor is can an individual receive social wreck non-marital therapy and camp at the same time yes 1 of each at the same time yes also clarify for campuses say it is a I'm not uniquely qualified so just to also clarify the question trying to be in the video for the camps for example if we do normally do the 6-month increments for social wreck and the non-medical therapy but for the camps say you find 1 for the winter that's coming up in the next 6 to 8 weeks notify your service coordinator and maybe something happens in May 1st spring break so just because those are within that 6 month period doesn't mean that they you can only do a camp in 6 months so they can be staggered um say you find a camp that is December 1st through the the 5th and and then another 1 that follows up on the 7th through the 8th you just have to notify your service coordinator of course within 6 to 8 day uh weeks to kind of get that started so just because of the time limited doesn't mean you can only we have 1 camp for the session just can't overlap if you have a question is last call maybe ask 1 more time while you're all right yeah for the zoom people you we still have time uh for a 1 more question if anybody has questions this is a time to ask all right I guess so hand in the back oh actually the question on the floor was that sometimes um an individual has a service coordinator from the Regional Center and then the person may leave the organization or transfer to another unit and how long would it be appropriate ate to expect it to take the d the interval between 1 service coordinator and being apprised of the new assignment so to answer your question I would recommend contacting there's a program manager of the unit that your daughter's assigned to I would contact them there is always an on call service coordinator in that unit and whoever's on that on call in a particular moment will be handling for help service your child the how long it could it take it can be I mean we're pretty good about hiring people pretty quick um but you know there's a training training period as well so it can range really I'd hate to put a number on it but I would strongly advocate for your child and and speak to the manager and who can assist you with immediately

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