Individual Program Plan (IPP)

The one-sentence answer

The Individual Program Plan is the written plan, agreed between you and your regional center, that sets out your goals and the services you will receive to work toward them — and the IPP team is the group that decides it.

What this means for you

Almost everything important runs through the IPP. Your services come from it, your individual budget is built on the services authorized in it, and changes to either generally have to go back through it.

The IPP team is you and the people you want there, plus your service coordinator. You can bring family, an independent facilitator, friends, or anyone whose view you want represented. That is not a courtesy — the planning process is supposed to be built around the person, which is what person-centered planning means.

The IPP team is the body that can adjust your budget, and knowing this is the most practically useful thing on this page. When a cost rises — a minimum wage increase, an employer burden change — your budget does not move on its own. DDS is explicit that such changes are "not automatically applied," and that a participant may request a meeting to adjust their individual budget where circumstances, needs or resources have changed.

So the IPP meeting is where you ask. If you never raise it, nothing happens. See individual budget.

Prepare for it like it matters, because it does. Write down what has changed and what you need before you go in. Bring your numbers. If you use an independent facilitator, this is the meeting they are most useful for.

For the detail-oriented

The IPP originates in the Lanterman Act and is the foundational planning document across all regional center services, not only Self-Determination.

In Self-Determination specifically, the IPP team's role in budget adjustments is referenced in WIC 4685.8(m)(1)(A)(i)(I) — the provision DDS cites when explaining that a change in employer burden does not by itself adjust an individual budget unless the team determines those circumstances apply.

You can ask for a review, and there is a deadline on the answer

Most families wait for the annual meeting. You do not have to. WIC 4646.5(b) sets these out:

Minimum review, whether or not anyone asks	at least once every three years
If you request a review	within 30 days of the request
If it is needed for health or safety, or to keep the person in their home	within 7 days

That 7-day line is the one to remember. If something has changed and waiting would put health, safety or the person's ability to stay at home at risk, say so in writing and in those terms when you ask. It changes the deadline from a month to a week.

The statute also says plans are reviewed and modified "in response to the person's achievement or changing needs" — so a review is not a favour you are asking for. A change in circumstances is the reason the mechanism exists.

Two more things the statute gives you

A written copy, in your language, within 45 days. On request, the regional center must provide a written copy of the IPP in a threshold language within 45 days.

A caregiver succession conversation from age 22. For someone cared for in the family home, the planning team must raise caregiver succession no later than the 22nd birthday and annually after that — and develop a succession plan if the person or their representative says one is needed. It is a hard subject and it is meant to be on the agenda long before it is urgent.

If you disagree with what the plan says

The IPP is agreed by the team, and you are on the team. When agreement does not come, the route is a Notice of Action and an appeal — not an argument that runs indefinitely. See also when you are told two different things, which covers what to do when the disagreement is about whose call it is in the first place.

Still to come: how the IPP relates to the annual individual budget renewal in Self-Determination specifically. The budget-adjustment provision above is cited, but the renewal cycle itself is not yet traced to a source.