Californians: Anyone here get Regional Center services?

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My 12-year-old AS son has just been accepted by Regional Center of the East Bay to help him with life skills. They basically do the stuff that is outside the jurisdiction of the school district, I guess. I'm not sure what to expect at this point.

Does anyone here have experience with them?

not sure what they do for tweens but they just gave my friend a 60k college grant!

WOW, that's great!

Never heard of them, are they only in the Bay area?

There are different ones throughout CA. The way I heard of them is at school during an IEP meeting. Years ago, the school psychologist recommended that I get in touch with them to see if they'd provide some kind of respite services or something, to give us parents a break. I called them and they said, "We only deal with people with real disabililities, not Asperger's." So that was the end of that.

But then my son was evaluated, at school, for his triennial thingy to see that he still qualifies for special ed (IDEA) services. It was determined that his "life skills" are more at the level of a three year old. So I sent that information to them, and this time was able to get him in. I guess it's not the diagnostic label that's important, but the level of need. He probably had "need" before, only I didn't recognize it.

I really need to get my act together and call them, but I haven't been able to for various reasons, having to do with my own insecurities.

When we were at the Regional Center building, in the waiting room, I overheard a conversation that involved an autistic teen/young adult starting his first job as a bagger at Safeway. So it sounds like they help out with that kind of stuff. I hope so.



Wow! I'm not expecting anything like that. I always thought "grant" meant you don't have to pay it back, but I've since learned that sometimes you do. Either way, that's pretty cool. It's hard to imagine the State of California giving money to anyone, though.

Congrats being accepted into the regiional center. Your son should have services for life, if not for many years. My friend's grant does NOT require payback. I guess I should say GGRC has paid for my BFF's education (60k per year for up to 4 years). Once he's out of college, they will also pay up to 2K per month for him to live with a "foster" family. The biological family is not paid for housing him but if he wants to live outside the family, 2K per month is available to caregivers for a room, food, and rides to appointments. GGRC provides transportation expenses as well and a lifetime job coach.