Developmental services: consumer abuse registry.

Existing law, the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, grants persons with developmental disabilities the right to receive treatment and services to meet their needs, regardless of age or degree of handicap, at each stage of life. Existing law requires that the state pay for these services through contracts with various private nonprofit corporations for the operation of regional centers for the developmentally disabled, and requires regional centers to develop an individual program plan (IPP) for each consumer that sets forth the treatment and services to be provided for the consumer. This bill would require a provider, as defined, to report a substantiated case of abuse of a consumer by a direct service worker to the appropriate investigating agencies, as defined. The bill would also require investigating agencies to report abuse of a consumer by a direct service worker to the State Department of Developmental Services. The bill would require the department to establish a registry of direct service workers or others against whom one or more substantiated reports of abuse of a consumer have been reported, and to make the registry available, pursuant to a release protocol established by the department in consultation with program stakeholders, to specified persons. The bill would require providers to access the registry before hiring a direct service worker and would prohibit providers from hiring or contracting with a direct service worker who is included in the registry. The bill would also require the department to coordinate with the State Department of Public Health and the State Department of Social Services to share information about direct service workers, and would require the department to adopt regulations to implement the bill's provisions by July 1, 2010.