Virginia Law

A. The compliance indicators establish the activities that a center for independent living shall carry out to demonstrate minimum compliance with the evaluation standards in 22VAC30-30-181. If a center fails to satisfy any one of the indicators, the center is out of compliance with the evaluation standards.

B. To be eligible to receive a continuation award for the third or any subsequent year of a grant, a center shall have complied fully during the previous project year with all of the terms and conditions of its grant; provide adequate evidence in its most recent annual performance report that the center is in minimum compliance with the evaluation standards in 22VAC30-30-181, and meets the requirements in 34 CFR Part 366. If a recipient receives funding for more than one center, each individual center shall meet these requirements.

C. Evidence a center must present to demonstrate that it is in minimum compliance with the evaluation standards is:

1. Compliance indicator 1, Philosophy. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that:

a. Individuals with significant disabilities constitute more than 50% of the center's governing board;

b. Individuals with disabilities constitute more than 50% of the center's employees in decision-making positions and employees in staff positions. A center may exclude personal assistants, readers, drivers, and interpreters employed by the center from this requirement. The determination that over 50% of a center's employees in decision-making and staff positions are individuals with disabilities must be based on the total number of hours (excluding any overtime) for which employees are actually paid during the last six-month period covered by the center's most recent annual performance report. However, a center must include in this determination its employees who are on unpaid family or maternity leave during this six-month period;

c. The center promotes self-help and self-advocacy among individuals with significant disabilities (e.g., by conducting activities to train individuals with significant disabilities in self-advocacy);

d. The center promotes the development of peer relationships and peer role models among individuals with significant disabilities (e.g., by using individuals with significant disabilities who have achieved IL goals (whether the goals were achieved independently or through assistance and services provided by a center) as instructors (volunteer or paid) in its training programs or as peer counselors);

e. The center ensures equal access of individuals with significant disabilities, including communication and physical access, to the center's services, programs, activities, resources, and facilities, whether publicly or privately funded. Equal access, for purposes of this subdivision, means that the same access is provided to any individual with a significant disability regardless of the individual's type of significant disability;

f. The center advocates for and conducts activities that promote the equal access to all services, programs, activities, resources, and facilities in society, whether public or private, and regardless of funding source, for individuals with significant disabilities; and

g. The center makes available in alternative formats, as appropriate, all of its written policies and materials and IL services.

2. Compliance indicator 2, Provision of services on a cross-disability basis. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that:

a. Provides IL services to eligible individuals or groups of individuals without restrictions based on the particular type or types of significant disability of an individual or group of individuals, unless the restricted IL services (other than the IL core services) are unique to the significant disability of the individuals to be served;

b. Provides IL services to individuals with a diversity of significant disabilities and individuals who are members of populations that are unserved or underserved by programs under Title VII of the Act; and

c. Provides IL core services to individuals with significant disabilities in a manner that is neither targeted nor limited to a particular type of significant disability.

3. Compliance indicator 3, Independent living goals. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that it:

a. Maintains a consumer service record that meets the requirements of 22VAC30-30-31 for each consumer;

b. Facilitates the development and achievement of IL goals selected by individuals with significant disabilities who request assistance from the center;

c. Provides opportunities for consumers to express satisfaction with the center's services and policies in facilitating their achievement of IL goals and provides any results to its governing board and the appropriate Statewide Independent Living Council;

d. Notifies all consumers of their right to develop or waive the development of an IL plan; and

e. Maintains records on the IL goals that consumers receiving services at the center believe they have achieved, the number of IL plans developed by consumers receiving services at the center, and the number of waivers signed by consumers receiving services at the center stating that an IL plan is unnecessary.

4. Compliance indicator 4, Community options and community capacity. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that, during the project year covered by the center's most recent annual performance report, the center promoted the increased availability and improved quality of community-based programs that serve individuals with significant disabilities and promoted the removal of any existing architectural, attitudinal, communication, environmental, or other type of barrier that prevents the full integration of these individuals into society. This evidence must demonstrate that the center performed at least one activity in each of the following categories:

a. Community advocacy;

b. Technical assistance to the community on making services programs, activities, resources, and facilities in society accessible to individuals with significant disabilities;

c. Public information and education;

d. Aggressive outreach to members of populations of individuals with significant disabilities that are unserved or underserved by programs under Title VII of the Act in the center's service area; and

e. Collaboration with service providers, other agencies, and organizations that could assist in improving the options available for individuals with significant disabilities to avail themselves of the services, programs, activities, resources, and facilities in the center's service area.

5. Compliance indicator 5, IL core services and other IL services. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that it provides:

a. Information and referral services to all individuals who request this type of assistance or services from the center in formats accessible to the individual requesting these services; and

b. As appropriate in response to requests from individuals with significant disabilities who are eligible for IL services from the center, the following services:

(1) IL skills training;

(2) Peer counseling (including cross-disability peer counseling);

(3) Individual and systems advocacy; and

(4) A combination, as appropriate, of any two or more of the IL services defined in § 7(30)(B) of the Act and 22VAC30-30-80.

6. Compliance indicator 6, Resource development activities. The center shall provide evidence in its most recent annual performance report that it has conducted resource development activities within the period covered by the performance report to obtain funding from sources other than Chapter 1 (29 USC § 796 et seq.) of Titles VII of the Act.