The Self-Determination Program (SDP) is a California program that gives people with developmental disabilities direct control over how their support services are chosen, organized, and paid for. Instead of relying on a regional center to select vendors and arrange services on your behalf, you manage your own budget and decide who provides your care, where you live, and how your support hours are structured. As of October 2024, 5,502 people were actively enrolled statewide.
How SDP Differs From Traditional Services
In California’s traditional system, your regional center acts as the go-between. It identifies approved vendors, sets rates, and coordinates your services according to your Individualized Program Plan (IPP). You have input, but the regional center ultimately controls which providers you use and how funding flows to them. If a service isn’t offered by a vendored provider in your area, you may simply go without it.
The Self-Determination Program flips that arrangement. You receive a defined budget based on your actual service needs, then build a custom spending plan that reflects your priorities. You can hire your own workers, including family members in some cases, purchase services from non-traditional providers, and redirect funds toward supports that matter most to you. The tradeoff is more responsibility: you’re accountable for staying within budget, ensuring providers are qualified, and documenting how public funds are spent.
The Five Core Principles
The program is built around five principles established by the self-advocacy movement:
- Freedom: You decide where you live, who you live with, how you spend your time, and who supports you.
- Authority: You control a budget and choose which services and supports to purchase with it.
- Support: You organize your own resources and staff so you can live the way you want.
- Responsibility: You use public money wisely and recognize the contributions you make to your community.
- Confirmation: You play the central role in making decisions and overseeing the services you need.
Who Is Eligible
Any person who receives services through a California regional center can request to join the Self-Determination Program. There’s no age requirement and no restriction based on disability type, as long as you’re already eligible for regional center services. A parent, legal guardian, or conservator can participate on behalf of someone who needs that level of support.
How Your Budget Is Calculated
Your individual budget is based on the most recent 12 months of regional center spending on your services. Essentially, the program looks at what was already being spent on your behalf and converts that into a dollar amount you can direct yourself.
Several adjustments can change that baseline figure. If a service listed in your IPP was only provided for part of the year, perhaps because it started mid-year or a provider hadn’t yet billed, the cost gets annualized to reflect what a full year would look like. If your circumstances have changed and you have newly identified needs, the budget can include what would have been spent on those services through the traditional system. Conversely, one-time expenses like a home modification that’s already been completed, or services you no longer need, get subtracted.
Some costs stay outside the individual budget entirely. Competitive integrated employment incentives, paid internship payments, and insurance copays are handled separately by the regional center.
What You Can Purchase
The spending flexibility is one of the program’s biggest draws. Your budget can cover a wide range of services and supports, as long as they connect to goals in your IPP and qualify for federal Medicaid funding. Some of the more notable categories include:
- Housing support: Help finding a place to live, tenant application assistance, landlord dispute mediation, and home modifications like ramps, grab bars, or automatic door openers.
- Vehicle modifications: Lifts, hand brakes, ramps, and ongoing maintenance of disability-related adaptations to your primary vehicle.
- Community integration: Art programs, swim classes, exercise groups, continuing education, peer mentoring, mobility services, and friendship and relationship-building supports. These qualify when they help you build independence, communication, or self-advocacy skills.
You cannot use SDP funds for goods or services available through generic public agencies (like a school district or Medi-Cal) or for purchases unrelated to your IPP goals. Your regional center reviews every spending plan to verify compliance before approving it.
The Role of Financial Management Services
You don’t handle payroll and tax filings yourself. Every SDP participant works with a Financial Management Services (FMS) provider, which processes payments and manages the administrative side of your budget. There are three models to choose from, depending on how much employer responsibility you want to take on.
A Bill Payer (or Fiscal Agent) is the simplest option: you purchase goods or services from a business, and the FMS pays the invoices. The Co-Employer model is for participants who want to hire their own workers but share responsibilities like payroll taxes and workers’ compensation with the FMS. The Sole Employer model gives you the most control. You act as the direct employer of your support staff, and the FMS handles only the financial processing.
Person-Centered Planning
Before you build a spending plan, you go through a person-centered planning process. This is different from a standard IPP meeting in tone and structure. You direct the process as much as possible, choose who attends, and pick a time and location that works for you. A trained facilitator helps guide the conversation.
The resulting plan documents your personal goals, strengths, and preferences alongside your clinical and support needs. It identifies both paid and unpaid supports that will help you reach those goals, includes strategies for handling disagreements, and addresses risk factors with backup plans. You sign the final plan, and it becomes the foundation for your spending decisions.
How to Enroll
The process starts with a conversation with your regional center service coordinator. Let them know you’re interested, and they’ll point you toward the mandatory SDP orientation. Beginning April 1, 2026, the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities is the only approved provider for these orientations statewide. Every person who wants to join the program must complete one.
After orientation, you work through person-centered planning, develop your individual budget with the regional center, and build a spending plan. The regional center then certifies the spending plan by checking three things: the services address your IPP goals, they qualify for federal funding, and they aren’t duplicating something available through a generic public agency. Once certified, the spending plan is attached to your IPP and you can begin directing your services.
The timeline from initial interest to active enrollment varies. Budget calculation, facilitator availability, and regional center processing times all play a role. Some participants complete the transition in a few months; others find it takes longer, particularly if service needs are complex or documentation requires back-and-forth.