This week the DRLC published the Children's Benefits Access Guide. The guide provides a comprehensive listing and explanation of health care and related benefits for children with disabilities in Los Angeles County.

Children's Benefits Access Guide cover

It also features helpful telephone numbers, website links, explanations of new developments related to the state budget, flowcharts and other useful information, all in one easy to locate resource. Readers can look up information in different ways, learning about the programs through the Q&A chapters, as well as charts describing benefits.

Parents and caregivers are often confused and frustrated when trying to determine the agency responsible for available benefits when so many offer services for children with disabilities. Adding to the confusion, each program has unique eligibility and coverage requirements. Families can spend valuable time trying to understand complicated programs like California Children's Services, or miss out on key benefits, such as "institutional deeming" or In Home Supportive Services.

"Our goal is to help parents learn more about the benefits that are available and that might support them and their children. We hope that it will provide the dedicated professionals working with children with disabilities and their families with a useful tool that will clarify the responsibilities of the various entities that provide benefits and the relationships among them," explained Audrey Kraus, the guide's author and director of the Children's Benefits Access Project.

The guide was funded by L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation's largest public health plan, and will benefit low-income and uninsured residents of Los Angeles County. 

"Our hope is that this benefits guide will make it easier for children with disabilities, and their families and caregivers, to get the services they're entitled to. Too often, children seeking healthcare and social services are ping-ponged from one agency to the next, without a clear roadmap for how to get what they need," said Lisa Kodmur, Services for Seniors and People With Disabilities Program Director, L.A. Care Health Plan. "This guide paves the way for smoother coordination of care and services for children with disabilities and complex medical conditions."

The Guide can be downloaded at no cost from the Disability Rights Legal Center's website.

At a later date, printed copies of the guide will be distributed to clinics, public agencies, nonprofits and regional centers. Ms. Kraus will give free trainings to public employees and families on how to use the guide.

On February 19, Maggie Hui, the community outreach coordinator, will present Health Care Access Self-Advocacy Training for Chinese Parents Association for the Disabled of Orange County. The main attendees for this event will be parents who are interested in healthcare advocacy on behalf of their children with disabilities. This event will be from 2 to 4 p.m. at Orange County ARC, 225 West Carl Karcher Way, Anaheim, California 92801.

Dayle McIntosh Center in Garden Grove

The Community Outreach Program has begun bimonthly office hours at the Dayle McIntosh Center in Garden Grove. This month, Outreach Staff will be at the center on February 23 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. This is a great opportunity for people in Orange County to meet staff in person and learn about the Americans With Disabilities Act and other disability rights laws. The Dayle McIntosh Center was named in memory of a young woman with a severe physical disability who worked to found the Center in 1977. It is located at 13272 Garden Grove Boulevard, Garden Grove, California 92843-2205.