Frequently Asked Questions

Disability Rights Florida’s Information and Referral Services Team are the first staff you will speak with when requesting assistance from Disability Rights Florida. This team is responsible for collecting the information and documents related to your request for assistance. They will determine if you will be provided with information and referral to outside agencies or an internal referral to a Disability Rights Florida Legal Team.

Disability Rights Florida is a nonprofit organization that provides information and referral, legal advocacy, and rights protection for adults and children with a wide range of disabilities. Our staff attorneys, advocates and investigators address civil rights violations, abuse and neglect, and discrimination in specific areas that is directly related to the disability of the individual contacting us. To learn more about our services, visit the Our Services page on our website.

Cases must fall within DRF’s Goals and Priorities and include issues such as access to healthcare and community services, school-related rights, discrimination in housing or employment, abuse and neglect in institutions or community settings among others that are directly related to a person’s disability. For a more detailed list, including a list of services we do not cover, see the Our Services page on our website.

DRF has several options for individuals to contact us to request assistance.

• You can call our agency’s toll-free phone line at 1-800-342-0823 during the hours listed below. Our live staffed phone lines are open specific days and hours. If staff are not available at the time of your call or if you call outside of live phone hours, you may be asked to leave a voicemail or be directed to call back during business hours.
  • Our Live Information and Referral Line is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9am to 4pm. The line is closed on Wednesdays.
  • Our Institutional Information and Referral line is open for individuals in facilities Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm
  • Our Voting Access hotline is open Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm with additional hours during voting season at 877-352-7337. 
• DRF offers a comprehensive Online Intake Form option available 24 hours a day for individuals to request assistance. These communications are reviewed by staff only during normal working hours on regularly scheduled workdays. Visit our Online Intake page to use an online form to request information, assistance, publications, and other services.
• If you are unable to call us or submit a form online, you can mail a request for assistance to:
  
  Disability Rights Florida
  2473 Care Drive, Suite 200
  Tallahassee, Florida 32308

DRF does not accept walk-ins. If you need an in-person intake as a part of an accommodation for your disability, please indicate this on the Online Intake Form, physical letter, or via phone to the advocacy specialist during the intake call. Requests for in-person intake appointments will be assessed by the Information and Referral Services Team Director and if appropriate, an appointment will be scheduled.

We will contact you as quickly as possible; however, it may take up to 10 business days for a staff member to contact you. If you have not received a reply after 10 business days, please contact us again.

Disability Rights Florida is not an emergency or crisis management agency. If you are in need of emergency services, please contact 911. If you need Suicide or Crisis assistance services, please call, text, or chat to 988.

Any incidents of abuse or neglect in facilities or institutional settings or by caregivers should be reported immediately to the Florida Abuse Hotline. The Florida Department of Children and Families has an online abuse reporting tool for the Florida Abuse Hotline. This reporting tool is available to professionally-mandated reporters, as well as the general public, as an additional way to report suspected cases of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or exploitation of children or vulnerable adults. The new online reporting tool is in addition to the existing toll-free line at 1-800-96-ABUSE, TTY 1-800-453-5145, and fax at 1-800-914-0004.

Disability Rights Florida understands that your issue may be time sensitive or have very specific deadlines. You can share those deadlines with us, but we cannot guarantee a call back or assistance prior to your deadline. You are responsible for all your deadlines while your application for assistance is being reviewed by our agency. If you receive a decision letter, you are responsible for filing an appeal or taking action to preserve your appeal rights following any instructions or time frames on the letter.

During the application process, the advocacy specialist will gather additional information about your reason for contacting us, along with some demographic information to meet our federal reporting requirements. The length of the information gathering process will depend on the circumstances of your request for assistance, the complexity of your request, and the number of documents we may need to gather from you or other sources.

Please allow at least 10-14 business days for our attorneys to evaluate your request for assistance. You will be notified regarding our decision.

No. When you first call Disability Rights Florida, you will speak with a non-attorney advocacy specialist on the Informational and Referral Services Team. The advocacy specialist will gather information regarding the issue that you are calling about and will collect documents that are needed to determine if you will be assigned to a Legal Team. The Legal Teams consist of advocates and attorneys.

No, only Disability Rights Florida attorneys can provide legal advice. Advocacy specialists may be able to provide information, resources, referral, and self-advocacy strategies, but they cannot provide legal advice. DRF attorneys review all applications for assistance to make sure we follow case selection criteria and other policies and procedures.

Our goals and priorities are developed from public input we receive through surveys and other outreach. Our Board of Directors reviews our goals and priorities annually to make sure they reflect the input we receive as well as the mandates of our federal partners.

Disability Rights lawyers review all cases to make sure we follow case selection criteria and other policies and procedures.

Only individuals with disabilities are eligible for our services, although anyone may contact us for disability-related information and referral. Only our small PATBI grant allows us to serve both the individual with the traumatic brain injury as well as the family.

Our contact is only with the individual with a disability unless the contact is the parent of a minor child or the individual’s legal guardian. If an individual is already represented by an attorney, we will refer the individual back to his/her legal counsel.

Due to the high demand for our services exceeding the availability of our staff and attorneys, we cannot guarantee direct services for every inquiry. Our goals, priorities, and objectives are determined yearly by public input by our constituents, consumers, PAIMI Advisory Council, and approved by our Board of Directors. 

A new Service Request must be evaluated relative to each of the following factors, and as to each factor, there must be a favorable conclusion before it will be decided to undertake the Service Request. We review:

1. the facts of your case;
2. whether your problem falls within one of our service areas as determined through public input surveys and board approval;
3. the relative likelihood of success;
4. the urgency of a particular matter and likely consequences for the individual; 
5. the resources required to provide high-quality representation, balanced with the resources available to DRF; 
6. the availability of alternative advocacy resources in the community, including the capacity of the individual for self-advocacy; and
7. the impact that the resolution of a particular matter will have upon the eligible community.

No. Our Advocacy Specialists can only:

1. Tell you if your case has been moved to a Legal Team for further review.
2. Check to see if your case is still being reviewed.
3. Send messages and/or collect documents regarding new information that may arise during the review process.

Legal representation is solely determined by Disability Rights Florida attorneys, and a written agreement is required to begin representation. 

DRF’s Online Intake Form gathers general background and biographical information about the person with a disability such as name, age, disability diagnosis, government benefits received and contact information like phone numbers and e-mail address to follow up. Some of this information will be required and marked with an asterisk (*).

In addition to this biographical and contact information, the online form will provide space to give a written description of the reason for contacting DRF.

This will include what assistance you are requesting, a brief description of the problem, and when it happened.

The Online Intake Form also provides an opportunity for you to upload relevant documents regarding the reason you are contacting DRF. A few examples include:

• For a K-12 education-related concern, a student’s IEP or 504 Plan.
• For Medicaid Waiver service denials, a copy of the Medicaid denial letter or services reduction notice.
• For housing-related concerns, a copy of the lease, reasonable accommodation request denials.

Please note that submitting relevant documents early in the intake process helps us review your request more quickly and determine the appropriate advocacy or legal assistance.

DRF requests documents when reviewing applications for assistance to help us decide whether we are able to help and what type of help we can give, if so. Due to grant requirements as well as the high demand for our services exceeding the availability of our staff and attorneys, we cannot guarantee direct services for every inquiry. We utilize our goals, priorities, and objectives, federal grant requirements, as well as our case selection criteria to decide whether or not we can assist you. All the information and documentation requested will be used to help determine eligibility.

The Information and Referral Services Team staff will do their best to gather information and documentation from you. If you have family, friends, a case manager, waiver support coordinator, or other supporter who could supply information or documentation to us, we are able to receive information from them, however, we will not discuss your case or information with them. You will still need to make the request directly to your supports to supply information or documentation to our Information and Referral Services Team.

If the information and documentation is not available from you or other sources, then a decision regarding your application for assistance will be made based on the information we were able to collect. In some cases, this determination will include assignment to a Disability Rights Florida advocate who can assist with requesting your records from specific agencies. This decision is made on a case-by-case basis.

The following examples may be helpful:

• A city bus driver will not allow an individual with a service animal to board, thus limiting that individual’s ability to travel in the community.
• An individual, in a facility or institutional setting, needs assistance in hearing other participants during meetings and alleges the staff is not providing adequate accommodations.
• A parent calls to report a dispute with a school over a denial of service on the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) for their minor child with a disability.
• An individual in a facility or institution contacts us to report a need for medical services. The individual has notified staff of the need for treatment, but the staff is taking no steps to provide the requested medical attention or assistance.
• An applicant or client of a vocational rehabilitation agency (Division of Vocational Rehabilitation/Division of Blind Services) is requesting assistance from our Client Assistance Program (CAP) grant obtaining services on their Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE).

If a call relates to a possible rights violation, an abuse or neglect allegation, or another type of problem within our goals and priorities, and there is no attorney already involved, we may request more details about the reason for your contact to assist us with our case evaluation. This helps us understand when the incident took place, where it happened, what happened, who was involved, and any steps the caller may have taken to resolve the matter.

The following examples may be helpful:

• An individual requests general information about Disability Rights Florida and materials.
• An individual recently diagnosed with a disability is interested in finding support groups or organizations.
• A family member is looking for places to donate equipment, a wheelchair, or other assistive technology after the death of a family member.
• An individual is having difficulties on the job, related to the disability, and is looking for resources to contact for information and assistance.

Following an intake interview, our intake staff may refer your information for additional evaluation within Disability Rights Florida to determine if the matter meets the criteria for more in-depth services.

Generally speaking, the things you tell us about your request are confidential. DRF will not notify anyone about your request or that you reached out for assistance unless you ask us to. However, in some instances, such as threats of harm to self or others or reports of immediate and serious abuse or neglect, Disability Rights Florida may be required to release limited information to outside agencies for the protection of you or others. If the law allows it, in nearly every instance, we will attempt to let you know before we report anything.

DRF has several Spanish-speaking staff who can answer questions and provide information via phone. Our staff also has access to certified language interpreters, in a variety of languages, that are available upon request. If you require American Sign Language (ASL), call our office using the free Florida Relay Service during business hours.

The DRF website can be translated into over 100 languages using the “Select Language” box located toward the top left of each page. And our agency contracts with Signly, a UK-based service that uses Sign Language as a Service (SLaas) to provide ASL interpretation of its website content. Simply click on the icon of two white hands over a black background in the bottom right corner of each page.

Yes. However, in most instances, DRF needs to be in direct contact with the individual with the disability, their legal guardian, or parent (if a minor child) before we can provide information and referrals or make a decision on a request for assistance. 

DRF services are for individuals with disabilities. Unless under guardianship, the adult (18+) must actively participate in the intake process and/or consent to our services. If an individual requires accommodation (support of another person, alternate communication methods etc.) during the intake process, a request can be made at any time.

Accommodation requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Please Note: Legal guardians can consent to and receive services. However, adults with disabilities must be allowed to participate to the extent possible. Therefore, staff may ask to communicate with the individual, even if there is a guardian.

You can contact the Information and Referral Services Team to report your concerns regarding an individual with disabilities who is unable to contact Disability Rights Florida directly. The information you report to us helps us decide what type of assistance we may be able to provide or if we will reach out to the individual with disabilities directly.

No. DRF provides legal and advocacy services only. Unfortunately, we do not provide direct services such as personal care or financial assistance of any kind. However, our Helpful Resources page does list a variety of other services that could potentially assist.

No, Disability Rights Florida does not provide case manager assistance.

No. Generally, DRF cannot assist with filling out forms. DRF would only assist with written communication, applications, or forms submitted to other agencies as it relates to cases that have been accepted for advocacy or legal representation. You are responsible for all deadlines prior to case acceptance which would include the signing of a formal advocacy or representation agreement.  

In some instances, your local Center for Independent Living (CIL) may be able to assist with completing applications or forms for other programs and agencies. However, DRF cannot guarantee the assistance of other agencies including the CIL. If you would like to locate your Center for Independent Living, a map of all CILs statewide can be accessed online at: https://floridacils.org/find-your-cil

You may file a grievance if:

• You asked for help from Disability Rights Florida but were told you could not get help;
• You currently are getting help from Disability Rights Florida but are unhappy with the help; or
• The help you were receiving ended and Disability Rights Florida denied further help. 

You can download a copy of the Client Grievance Procedure.