Report on OPWDD Self-Direction Model Now Available

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Guidehouse, the consulting firm OPWDD hired to review its Self-Direction model in March 2024, has released its Self-Direction Assessment Final Report. This comprehensive report follows an extensive review of our system and incorporates feedback from more than 9,000 participants and stakeholders on how the current model is working for them or not working for them. The groups surveyed included people who use Self-Direction, their families, Care Coordination Organizations, Fiscal Intermediaries and Support Brokers.

Our goal in engaging Guidehouse was to identify ways to improve how New Yorkers with developmental disabilities direct their own services and service budgets and ensure the Self-Direction model is programmatically and financially sustainable in the long term. The Final Report provided eight recommendations, with a total of 32 activities to support them, for ways to improve OPWDD’s Self-Direction program. It gave several recommendations for improving the budgeting process, ways to make the model available to more people, and how to best support people who don’t have a circle of support at home or those who may have lost that support.

All the recommendations are based on feedback by people who use Self-Direction and people who provide Self-Direction, OPWDD’s current policies and procedures, and best practices implemented in other states.

Both the full report and a Plain Language version of the report which explain the recommendations in more detail are available on the OPWDD website.

Thank you to those of you who participated in this process by sharing your thoughts and insights about your experience with Self-Direction by completing a survey or participating in a Town-Hall.   We know that people choose Self-Direction because they want more control over the structure of their lives and the increased flexibility that comes with choosing supports they want, the staff they want to work with and the schedule that works best for them. We want the program to work for you as well as it possibly can. This survey process is the first step toward an improved Self-Direction model that better meets the needs of those who choose to direct their services.

Sincerely, 

Willow Baer Commissioner