The three choices
Traditional services
Your regional center arranges your services with providers it works with.
Who finds your providers: Your regional center, and you can ask for a provider you prefer.
Good to know: Less for you to manage. Most people get services this way.
Participant-directed services
Inside traditional services, for some services such as respite, you hire your own worker. A financial management service pays them after you approve their hours.
Who finds your providers: You, for those services.
Good to know: You are the employer, or share that role with the financial management service. There is no individual budget.
Self-Determination Program (SDP)
You get an individual budget, based on the services already approved for you. You decide how it is spent and who provides your services.
Who finds your providers: You, with help from an independent facilitator (paid from your budget) or your service coordinator.
Good to know: More of the work is yours, like a spending plan tied to your goals. A financial management service pays your providers. SDP starts with a free orientation.
In all three, you stay with your regional center and still have a service coordinator.
Make your plan before your next planning meeting
- 1Picture your best life.
What would a good week look like? What help would it take to get there?
- 2Get ready with DAN.
Ask DAN about all three choices. DAN helps you put what you want into words your regional center can more easily say yes to.
- 3Ask for your meeting.
You can ask for an IPP (Individual Program Plan) meeting at any time. The regional center must hold it within 30 days after you ask. Ask in writing so there is a record.
Write your person-centered plan
Acierto PCP helps you put your best life into your own words: your strengths, what matters to you, and your goals. Bring it to your planning meeting.
No sign-up. What you type stays on your device. Start your planGet ready with DAN
DAN, the Disability Access Navigator, answers your questions about all three choices and helps you write your meeting request.
Day or night, in English or Spanish. Free to people and their unpaid supports. No login. Ask DANNext steps for each choice
Traditional services
At your planning meeting, say what you want your services to do for you. You can ask for a provider you prefer.
Participant-directed services
Ask your service coordinator which of your services you can direct, and how the financial management service works.
Self-Determination Program
- Go to a free orientation from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities: scdd.ca.gov/sdp-orientation
- The steps to enroll, from the Self-Determination Institute: completeguidetosdp.org
- Choose your team: Acierto IF (independent facilitators) and Acierto FMS (financial management services)
- Every regional center has a local Self-Determination advisory committee. Its meetings are open to the public.
Your regional center
Kickoff
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 12 noon Pacific
On Zoom and free, in English with Spanish interpretation. The three choices in plain words, how to get ready for your next planning meeting, and the launch of the Double SDP Challenge.
The registration link will be posted here soon.
For schools, clinics and community groups
- Doctors, clinics and school IEP teams: ready-to-send notes and a waiting-room flyer at providers.sdta-np.com
- Organizations that want to help more people find the Self-Determination Program: join the Double SDP Challenge as a sponsor, at no cost.