Clients Rights

Residential Services, Inc., (“RSI”) is committed to ensuring that each one of its clients is treated with dignity and respect at all times. All clients are entitled to the following rights:

1. To be informed, in a manner of communication that is understandable to the client, of his or her rights.
2. To exercise each and every right guaranteed to an individual by the Constitution of the United States, Constitution of the State of Indiana, statutory and civil rights, except for those rights that have been denied or limited by an adjudication or finding or mental incompetency in a guardianship or other civil proceeding.
3. To receive mental health services or developmental training in accordance with the standards or professional practice, that are appropriate to the client’s needs and designed to afford at a reasonable opportunity to improve the client’s condition (subject to the limitation that there may be certain conditions for which there is no known effective treatment or developmental training)
4. To receive human care and protection from harm.
5. To be treated at all times with courtesy, consideration and respect, and to receive services free from discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin or handicap.
6. To practice a chosen religion
7. To contact and consult with legal counsel and private practitioners of the client’s choice at the client’s expense.
8. To be visited at reasonable times.
9. To send and receive sealed mail.
10. To have access to a reasonable amount of letter writing materials and postage.
11. To place and receive telephone calls at the client’s own expense.
12. To wear his or her own clothes.
13. To keep and use personal possessions.
14. To keep and spend a reasonable amount of the client’s own money.
15. To have access to individual storage space for private use
16. To maintain reasonable means of communication with persons outside of the residence of facility.
17. To refuse to submit to treatment or habilitation program
18. To be informed of the nature of the treatment of habilitation program proposed
19. To be informed of the known effects of receiving and of not receiving the treatment or habilitation.
20. To be informed of alternative treatments or habilitations programs, if any.
21. For those involuntary clients, to petition a committing court of hearing officer of consideration of a treatment or program.

To protect a client’s rights and enable a client to exercise those rights, RSI and its staff members must do the following.

1. Provide a client with human care and protection from harm.
2. Provide services that:
   1. Are meaningful and appropriate; and
   2. Comply with:
      1. Standards of professional practices;
      2. Guidelines established by accredited professional organizations if applicable; and
      3. Budgetary constraints; in a safe, secure and supportive environment.
3. Obtain written consent from a client, of the client’s legal representative, if applicable before release information from the client’s records unless the person requesting release of the records is authorized by law to receive the records without consent.
4. Process and make decisions regarding complaints filed by an individual within two (2) weeks after RSI receives the complaint.
5. Inform a client, in writing, and in the client’s usual mode of communication, of:
   1. The individual’s constitutional and statutory rights using a form approved by the BDDS; and
   2. The complaint procedure established by RSI for processing complaints.