Self-Determination,
explained properly.

One statewide rulebook for every FMS provider, and a review of all of them

DDS directive D-2026-Self-Determination Program-003 sets sixteen standards every Self-Determination FMS provider must meet, moves all of them under San Diego Regional Center, and starts a compliance review with submissions due 28 November 2026. For families, your rights do not change and you can still switch provider at any time. What changes is that every provider now owes you the same things in writing: a grievance process resolved within 60 days, a plain-language service agreement, monthly budget statements, 60 days' notice before changing or ending your service, and a transfer completed within 60 days if you leave. If your provider falls short in the review, your regional center has to write to you, and we explain what each of the two letters means.

Read what changed

The site opens: 42 glossary terms, the FMS directory, and the tools, all published

Everything that was written behind a DRAFT badge is now public. That is 42 glossary terms, the guide to being told two different things, and Choosing an FMS - the directory of all 29 providers with their DDS-approved burden rates. One guide, Being an employer in California, is deliberately held back until three sections on hiring paperwork, wage statements and ending employment are written, because an employer duties page with missing duties reads as complete when it is not. Nothing was smoothed over to get here: where an entry rests on the waiver application rather than a DDS directive, or describes how a model is run rather than how DDS defines it, the page says so and says what to ask. New today: a Notice of Action entry, built from the DS 1820 form and the DDS mutual consent fact sheet, covering the thing most families do not know - that a letter saying the regional center understood you agreed is not the end of it, and saying you disagree obliges them to issue a notice you can appeal.

Browse the glossary

A fourth reason you get different answers: the provider's own business practice

Sometimes nobody is wrong. The rule allows the thing, and your FMS has decided not to do it, or cannot do it with the systems it has. A provider hires staff on your behalf, becomes an employer of record and pays caregivers and vendors before the money covering them has arrived, so when a payment turns out not to have been properly authorised the provider is often the one who absorbs it. Different providers price that risk differently and give you opposite answers while both being right. The guide now explains this, and why asking a provider why they work the way they do tells you more than the yes or no.

Read the guide

When you are told two different things

Everyone in this program eventually gets two answers to the same question, and it is rarely because someone is lying. A new guide on why it happens, the three different kinds of disagreement it can be - someone is mistaken, it is your planning team's call, or the rule is read differently - and what to do about each. Including why your FMS sometimes cannot pay for something your regional center seemed to approve, and why the fix is usually the spending plan rather than an argument.

Read the guide

A calculator for what an employer burden rate really costs you

Put your own caregivers, wage and hours in, tick the providers you are actually deciding between, and see the difference in hours of care rather than percentages. Sentinel Four stays in every comparison whether it flatters us or not, and ten of the seventeen others are cheaper than we are. For most families it is about 68 hours a year - less than the difference a dollar on the wage makes. For families with several full-time staff it is roughly 400 hours, and the tool says so. Choosing an FMS is a service decision, and the page now leads with that.

Try the calculator