Non-Educational Community-Based Support Services

The Texas Legislature appropriates funds to implement Texas Education Code 29.013 for these services. The funds may be used only for eligible students with disabilities who would remain or would have to be placed in residential facilities primarily for educational reasons without the provision of noneducational community-based support services.

Some allowable noneducational services and their definitions are listed as follows:

These funds are intended to support families in efforts to return a student with a disability currently placed in a residential facility to the home, or to prevent a student with a disability who is being considered for residential placement from being placed in a residential facility.

These services are not intended to be intensive or long-term but rather, periodic and short-term.

Respite Care – Providing relief to parents and/or family with intermittent, short-term care (e.g. weekends, during school holidays). Regularly scheduled periods of respite care over an extended period of time is not allowable.
Attendant Care – Providing occasional outside assistance to parents and families. These services should be provided to normalize routine family activities, including hours when families must sleep. Attendant care is not allowable for baby-sitting or to replace day/night care services.
Psychiatric/Psychological Consultation – Consulting with the student, family, and all persons involved in providing noneducational services, or in causing them to be provided. The focus of consultation should be to develop a functional family unit. This service excludes medical or treatment related services.
Management of Leisure Time – Working with the student to develop skills that enable the student to entertain him or herself appropriately without adult supervision. This service is closely related to socialization training.
Socialization Training – Working with the family to help the student develop appropriate skills and behavior in public. This training is closely related to leisure time management.
Individual Support – Preparing the student to be healthy and productive by developing self-esteem.
Family Support – Working with the family to develop a functional family unit.
Family Dynamics Training – Providing training for the family to determine family values, goals, and expectations (more intensive than family support).
Generalization Training – Training the student and family to use a behavior management plan outside the structured, educational environment. This training may include modeling parenting skills.
Peer Support Group – Working with a group of students to develop appropriate interaction skills.
Parent Support Group – Working with a group of parents to develop coping and behavior management skills.
Transportation – See question 11 in the Noneducational Community-Based (NECB) Support Services FAQs for more information

For a more detailed explanation of the various allowable support services, please refer to the Noneducational Community-Based (NECB) Support Services FAQ document.

Noneducational Community-Based (NECB) Support Services FAQs

Examples of unallowable expenditures:

Direct payment to parents or to a business or corporation that the parent owns.
Equipment
Sheltered workshop services
Babysitting (this includes attendant care when no family member is available or caring for a child while the parent is at work)
Remodeling or construction of the student’s classroom or home
Food
Transportation to any educational service or any service being provided by another public agency
Medicine, medical prescriptions, doctor and dentist visits, medication therapy, evaluations
Special education and related services required for the provision of Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) as documented in the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). For example, if the Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) committee of a student who has autism has determined that the student requires in-home training or viable alternatives and parent training for the provisions of FAPE, those services cannot be covered with noneducational funds.

Application Process

Parents wishing to receive these funds must first contact their child’s school and ask the school to apply for these funds. Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) must apply directly through the Education Service Center (ESC) 10 website using their online application.

The LEA should have a planning meeting to discuss options for noneducational services. Persons attending the planning meeting should be district staff knowledgeable about the student and other agencies’ responsibilities and may include staff from Community Resource Coordination Groups (CRCG), local mental health authority, local behavioral health authority, or other potential service providers, and the parent(s) and/or adult student. The student’s Admission, Review and Dismissal (ARD) committee SHOULD NOT make the decision.

Link to Apply