The Mission of the Division of Services for People with Disabilities is to Promote Opportunities and Provide Supports for Persons with Disabilities to lead self-determined lives.
Values:
- We value the preservation of family and other natural supports
- We believe in stewardship and wise use of public resources
- We value coordination and cooperation
- We respect and support personal choice and personal responsibility
- We respect personal and cultural diversity
- We believe people deserve high quality supports and services
- We believe funding should be needs based and should follow the person
- Promote and recognize excellence
- Continue a person-centered philosophy
- Promote public awareness of disability issues
- Work collaboratively to dissolve barriers to quality service
- Support a full spectrum of service options
- Support self-determination by assisting persons to exercise and develop their ability to make choices and experience
a) freedom to make informed choices from among available options of services and supports, b) authority to control a
defined amount of dollars to purchase only what is needed and valued, c) support to nurture informal relationships that
might augment, if not replace, some purchased services, and d) responsibility to give back to the community
The Division is working toward a system that:
- Serves Utahns with severe intellectual and physical disabilities and acquired brain injuries who are carefully assessed and determined eligible
- Is fully person-centered, recognizing and building upon a person's strengths
- Values, enhances, reinforces and strengthens a person's natural supports whenever possible
- Establishes services and budgets with an objective, strengths-based assessment tool applied uniformly across the state
- Continually assesses utilization of services to ensure that needs and services match up at every given point in time
- Strives to maximize resources and attempts to eliminate the waiting list
- Creates high-quality standards and is diligent in consistently enforcing those standards
- Uses objective data to drive decision-making
- Acknowledges and preserves the strengths of our provider network but is constantly pushing for higher quality
- Is responsive to the concerns of parents, advocates and other stakeholders
