Glossary
Service Coordinator
Also called: SC, case manager, consumer services coordinator, CSC
Last reviewed September 30, 2026
The one-sentence answer
Your service coordinator is the person at your regional center who is assigned to you — they run your planning meetings, arrange services, and are your main point of contact with the regional center.
You may hear them called a case manager or consumer services coordinator. Same role.
What this means for you
This is the person you will deal with most, and the relationship matters. They coordinate your IPP process, are involved in setting your individual budget, and are usually who you ask when something is unclear or has gone wrong.
They work for the regional center, not for you. That is not a criticism — it is the structure, and it is worth understanding. Their job includes stewarding public funds, so they are balancing your interests against the program's rules and resources. A good one does that well and is genuinely on your side within it.
Service coordinators carry large caseloads. Response times and depth of attention vary accordingly. Two practical consequences:
- Put important things in writing, and keep what you send. A written record is worth far more than a remembered phone call when a question comes back months later.
- If you need someone whose only job is your interests, that is what an independent facilitator is for. They are not a replacement for your service coordinator — the roles are different, and in Self-Determination many families use both.
Your service coordinator is not your FMS. The regional center coordinates; the FMS handles the money. When something goes wrong it is worth being clear which one you actually need — a late vendor payment is an FMS question, a budget or service dispute is a regional center question.
For the detail-oriented
The role sits in WIC 4640.6, which governs regional center contracts with DDS.
Somebody has to answer you within two hours in an emergency
This is the least-known thing on this page and the most worth remembering. WIC 4640.6(b) requires every regional center's contract to include an emergency response system under which "a regional center staff person will respond to a consumer, or individual acting on behalf of a consumer, within two hours of the time an emergency call is placed."
It runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Not office hours. If you are in an emergency and cannot reach your own coordinator, you are not waiting until Monday — ask your regional center for its emergency line and keep the number somewhere you will find it at 2am.
How many people your coordinator is carrying
The statute caps caseloads by contract, and the numbers explain a great deal about response times:
| Who | Average ratio |
|---|---|
| Children five and under | 1 to 40 |
| People with low or no purchase-of-service spending (enhanced coordination) | 1 to 40 |
| People on a Home and Community-Based Services waiver — which includes Self-Determination | 1 to 62 |
| People who moved from a developmental center to the community since April 1993 | 1 to 45 |
| Most others | 1 to 62, or 1 to 66 in one category |
These are averages, and there are hard ceilings on top of them. No coordinator may carry more than 79 consumers (or 59, in the developmental-centre category) for more than 60 days.
Two of those rows are worth acting on. If your child is five or under, or if your purchase-of-service spending is low or nil, the statute puts you in a 1 to 40 band — and the second of those exists precisely because families who spend least have historically been served least. If you are in either group and cannot get hold of anyone, that is worth raising with the regional center directly.
Also worth folding in: DDS published G-2025-Regional Center Performance Measures-001
on service coordinator competencies (September 2025), which would let this entry say
what a service coordinator is actually expected to be able to do — useful for a family
trying to work out whether an answer they have been given is right. Unread.