Developmental services: stakeholder groups.

Under existing law, the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, the State Department of Developmental Services contracts with local, nonprofit regional centers to provide various services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities. The department is required to consult with stakeholders for various reasons, including, but not limited to, coordinating client advocacy, planning programs, and creating alternative service delivery models to obtain services and supports. This bill would require the department, in convening stakeholder groups pursuant to the act, to take into account the state's ethnic, sexual orientation, gender identity, geographic, and socioeconomic diversity and to use best efforts to include stakeholder groups that, collectively, reflect the interests of the state's diverse population. The bill would also require the department to include in appropriate reports to the Legislature a description of how it has complied with the requirement of stakeholder group diversity.