How to get help from DRC, the tools and advice that we give you and our outreach and training.

Goal:
Provide education and self-advocacy tools to Californians with disabilities to increase and advance their rights.

Actions:

• Provide advocacy services to Californians with disabilities on legal issues impacting their communities.
• Provide education, training, or other engagement activities on issues impacting disability communities.
• Create, promote, or distribute self-advocacy materials.

If you feel like someone discriminated against you or if you have questions about your housing rights.

Goal:
Work in solidarity with marginalized communities to create radical positive change by ending discrimination, and preserving and advancing civil and human rights.

Actions:

• Engage in ongoing advocacy efforts to oppose government efforts to institutionalize individuals with disabilities in various settings, such as the government’s efforts to criminalize and institutionalize people with disabilities who are unsheltered.
• Challenge disability discrimination by private and public entities and protect self-determination.
• Protect and expand accessible, affordable integrated housing for people with disabilities.
• Increase the accessibility of transportation systems and modes of travel.
• Ensure equal access* to information in all places, including higher education, employment, public places, and other settings.

This is for people with questions about Medi-Cal and some other health services like IHSS and CCS.

Goal:
Ensure Access to Healthcare and Home and Community-Based Services.

Actions:

• Ensure access to healthcare and home and community-based services, and address access disparities in the Medi-Cal system (includes IHSS for children and adults).
• Expand access to Medi-Cal services for children, including in the California Children’s Services (CCS) program and protect rights to services under Early and Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT)
• Increase access to durable medical equipment (DME) and other technology which supports people with disabilities in their homes and communities.

If you have questions about Regional Center, or other services related to an Intellectual or Developmental Disability.

Goal:
Ensure that people with I/DD get the community-based services they need and choose, when they need them, so they can lead the lives they want.

Actions:

• Protect and advance the rights of people with I/DD to get services through California’s Lanterman Act and ensure those services are delivered in equitable, non-discriminatory ways.
• Help people with I/DD get the regional center funded services they need in their homes and communities and fight to end California’s reliance on institutional and carceral settings.
• Advance the rights of people with I/DD to have the autonomy and freedom to make their own life choices and protect those rights from being taken away.

If you have questions about your rights while you live in a hospital, nursing home, jail, or other institutional placement and about abuse or neglect in those placements.

Goal:
Ensure vigorous and meaningful oversight by the abuse response system and end abusive practices in facilities, programs, restrictive settings, carceral settings, and community settings.

Actions:

• Investigate and address abuse and neglect of people with disabilities.
• Improve adequacy and timeliness of abuse response system and oversight entities through advocacy and data tracking.
• Investigate and address neglect and abusive conditions and practices in jails, prisons, hospitals, and juvenile detention facilities.
• Investigate and address the harmful effects of immigration and refugee policies and detention on people with disabilities.
• Investigate and address excessive restraint and seclusion in facilities and programs.
• Collaborate with community groups and leaders to lead advocacy that addresses the root causes of abuse and neglect of people with disabilities, including stigma, unnecessary institutionalization and incarceration, and lack of trauma-informed and person-centered, culturally-responsive community-based services.
• Provide accessible trainings to diverse disability communities, professionals, and the public to further the goal of ending abusive practices and ensuring vigorous and meaningful oversight.

If you have questions about how to access mental health supports and services or discrimination.

Goal:
We want to make life better and fairer for people with serious mental illness.

Actions:

• Stop inhumane treatment of people in places like jails or hospitals where they cannot leave.
• Help people stay in their communities and get care that respects their culture and trauma.
• Fight against mean or discriminatory behavior and unfair rules from businesses, the government, or others.
• Make sure people get to choose their options and have a say in their mental health care.
• Work with local groups and leaders to stand up for people with mental illness.
• Share helpful information  in many languages and formats so everyone understands their rights.

This includes questions about Department of Rehabilitation – DOR, services, work questions for people who get Social Security benefits, and other questions about reasonable accommodations or disability discrimination at work.

Goal:
Increase employment and access to employment services and supports for people with disabilities.

Actions:

• Ensure services and systems that support competitive, integrated work and expand opportunities for people with disabilities. 
• Increase employment of people with disabilities by addressing barriers to hiring and retention. 
• Collaborate with community groups and leaders to advocate for supports that increase employment of people with disabilities. 
• Empower people with disabilities, their families, and allies, through education about employment rights, accessing employment services and supports, and Social Security work incentive programs. 

Helping people with mental health needs speak up for themselves.

Goal:
We want to help people with mental health learn their rights and how to speak up for what they want. We also want to help families, providers, and supporters understand how to support those rights.

Actions:

• Teach people with mental health about their rights and how to speak up.
• Help doctors, therapists, and other helpers treat people fairly and with respect.
• Give families and supporters the right information to help in the best way.
• Work with community groups to make services better.
• Share all this info in different languages and formats, so everyone can understand.

This is about whether you can register to vote.

Goal:
Ensure that people with disabilities understand how to register to vote and that voter registration is accessible and easy for people with disabilities.

Actions:

• Educate people with disabilities (including those under a conservatorship) and their stakeholders about voter registration.
• Ensure that people with disabilities who are eligible to vote and who express a desire to vote (including those under a conservatorship) are able to register to vote.
• Monitor compliance with voting rights requirements for people under conservatorship by courts, counties, and the State.
• Monitor voter registration agencies and Secretary of State processes for compliance with the law and advocate for improvements to their processes.
• Monitor the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to ensure automatic voter registration and accessibility.

This is about whether you can vote.

Goal:
Improve the voting experience of people with disabilities by ensuring that it is as accessible, private, and independent as possible.

Actions:

• Maintain a voting hotline and represent voters with disabilities who experience barriers to voting.
• Increase public awareness and the accessibility of Remote Accessible Vote-by-Mail.
• Ensure people with disabilities can vote privately and independently.
• Train election workers, election worker trainers, and elections officials about disability access and disability etiquette.
• Develop a stronger network of advocates with awareness of and sensitivity to disability-related voting issues.

This includes special education, school discipline and policing, and disability discrimination in schools.

Goal:
Safe, Inclusive, Universally Designed Schools.

Actions:

• Ensure equitable access to education and services that are designed to achieve better educational outcomes for students with disabilities.
• Ensure the use of safe, restorative practices to support student behavior, in lieu of discipline, exclusion, restraint, seclusion, police contact, segregation, suspension, and expulsion.
• Ensure inclusive, culturally competent schools.
• Ensure integrated mental health services in schools and communities for students with serious emotional impairment.
• Ensure access to technology, effective communication, language access and other necessary services for students with low incidence disabilities, from language distinct communities* and students who can benefit from these services.