A statewide Self-Determination Program (SDP) is mandated by California Welfare and Institutions Code, Division 4.5, Chapter 6, Article 4, Section 4685.8 to be “available in every regional center catchment area to provide participants and their families, within an individual budget, increased flexibility and choice, and greater control over decisions, resources, and needed and desired services and supports to implement their IPP.” Because the SDP pilot and the subsequent SDP roll-out in July 2021 have revealed barriers to families’ participation, culturally and linguistically - tailored needs assessment of families from diverse backgrounds is necessary to ensure equitable access to the program.

To this end, the project team collected and analyzed a substantial corpus of focus group data to understand African American / Black including Ethiopian and Eritrean, Chinese, and Latino families’ perceptions and experiences of SDP as actual or potential participants. The project’s geographical area is Los Angeles County. Another content area was to document Self-Advocates’ experiences and perceptions of SDP. Based on the findings, a set of recommendations was developed to help improve system-level cultural responsiveness of the SDP outreach and implementation.