The California Department of Developmental Services (“DDS”) provides care and support services to developmentally disabled individuals at all stages of life. This includes moments of crisis. Specifically, DDS’s crisis-focused services include the Crisis Assessment Stabilization Team (“CAST”) and Stabilization Training Assistance Reintegration (“STAR”) program. Together, these programs comprise the core of DDS’s crisis stabilization efforts. In this way, DDS ensures that developmentally disabled individuals in crisis receive the care they need so they can resolve the crisis safely.

What is Crisis Stabilization?

Crisis stabilization refers to systems of short-term, intensive care designed to provide immediate care to people in moments of crisis. Rather than long-term care, crisis stabilization is focused on helping the individual navigate through the immediate crisis. Then, once the crisis is over, crisis stabilization care helps transition them to regular, day-to-day care.

How DDS Cares for Those in Crisis

Stabilization Training Assistance Reintegration (“STAR”) Homes are DDS’s first line of care for individuals in crisis. Introduced as part of the state’s “Plan for Crisis and Other Safety Net Services in the California Developmental Services System,” STAR Homes are full-time residential facilities specifically for DDS participants in crisis.

There are STAR Homes in Vacaville, Springville/Porterville, and Costa Mesa. These homes accommodate up to five people at any given time. STAR Homes service adolescents between the ages of 12-17 and adults 18 and older who are in acute crisis. Individuals living in a STAR Home can stay for up to 13 months. Ultimately, STAR Homes aim to help individuals make it through their crisis, after which they can be transitioned to another residential facility or back to their home communities.

Very often, one of the biggest risks developmentally disabled people in crisis face is being put into overly restrictive institutional care. DDS CAST works to avoid this situation by helping people in crisis transition into safer, more effective residences, with a preference for community-based living.

In essence, CAST picks up where STAR Homes leave off. More specifically, when a person living in a STAR Home is either well enough to leave, or they have been in the STAR Home for 13 months, CAST steps in to help transition them into their next residence. Typically, this will be either a community care facility, a supported living facility, or some other community-based supportive residential facility.

Ultimately, STAR and CAST work hand-in-hand to serve those dealing with acute crisis. In so doing, these programs function as vital components of the broader DDS system.