OAR 411-325: Licensing, Staffing, and Resident Rights

Oregon Administrative Rule Chapter 411, Division 325 (OAR 411-325) sets the standards for licensed 24-hour residential programs that serve children and adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities in Oregon. It covers the homes, apartments, and duplexes where providers deliver round-the-clock home and community-based services, and it tells providers how to be licensed, how to staff the setting, how to plan each resident’s supports, which behavioral interventions are off-limits, and how the Department of Human Services can enforce the rules when things go wrong.

What Division 325 Covers

Division 325 applies only to 24-hour residential settings. Other service models in Oregon’s developmental disability system, such as in-home supports or employment services, sit under separate divisions in OAR Chapter 411. If a provider does not operate a licensed residential home, apartment, or duplex, Division 325 is not the rule to look at.

A “24-hour residential setting” under the division is a residential home, apartment, or duplex licensed by the Department of Human Services under ORS 443.410, where home and community-based services are provided to people with I/DD. These settings are treated as provider-owned, controlled, or operated. The service delivery itself is the “24-hour residential program,” and the provider must be certified and endorsed under Division 323 to run one.¹

The division also pulls in the broader home and community-based services requirements in OAR Chapter 411, Division 004. Every 24-hour setting must be fully integrated into the surrounding community and support the same degree of community access that people without disabilities enjoy.²

Licensing a 24-Hour Residential Program

A provider needs three authorizations from the Department before opening a home: a certificate, an endorsement, and a license.³ The license application and a non-refundable fee must be submitted at least 30 days before the anticipated start date, and the application has to specify how many beds the setting will operate.⁴

Once issued, a license lasts two years unless revoked or suspended. At renewal, the number of licensed beds cannot exceed what the existing license allows without Department approval. Apartments and duplexes are capped at five individuals, counting anyone in the setting who is receiving community living supports.⁴

Staffing Minimums and Training

Division 325 sets floor-level staffing ratios tied to the size of the setting and the people living there:

Five or fewer residents in a home: at least one staff member on the premises whenever residents are present.
Five or fewer residents in an apartment: at least one staff member on the premises of the apartment complex whenever residents are present.
Six or more residents: at least one staff member for every 15 individuals during awake and sleeping hours, with limited exceptions for homes licensed before January 1, 1990.
Any home serving children: at least one awake overnight staff member on the premises whenever children are present.

These are minimums. The agency must build a staffing schedule that actually meets each resident’s daily living, behavioral, and medical support needs, which in many homes requires more than the ratio.⁴

Every provider must adopt a Competency Based Training Plan aligned with the Department’s Oregon Core Competencies. It has to address health, safety, individual rights, values, and the provider’s mission, and describe specific competencies, training methods, timelines, how staff are evaluated, and a remediation process when a staff member falls short. Direct-support staff must know the resident’s Individual Support Plan and understand the medical, behavioral, and other support needs of everyone in the home, and the provider must keep current written records of each staff member’s demonstrated competencies.⁴

For children’s homes, a further requirement takes effect January 1, 2026: an agency must ensure a program supervisor is present in each children’s home for at least eight hours per week, with at least two years of professional experience delivering supports to children.⁴

The Individual Support Plan and Resident Rights

The Individual Support Plan (ISP) is the central document for each resident. The provider must agree in writing to carry out its portion of the ISP, keep a copy on site, and maintain current documentation showing how each service and support is being delivered. That documentation has to be available to the individual, their legal representative, the case management entity, and Department representatives.⁴

OAR 411-325-0300 requires providers to protect the rights set out in OAR 411-318-0010 and to help residents understand and exercise them. Each individual gets a written description of their rights at move-in, on request, and annually.⁵ A parent or guardian may place reasonable limitations on a child’s rights, but adults are presumed to hold them in full.

Rights That Require an Individually Based Limitation

Several freedoms cannot be restricted without a documented individually based limitation in the ISP. These include:

Accessing personal food at any time
Having visitors at any time
Locking one’s own bedroom door
Choosing a roommate
Furnishing and decorating one’s bedroom
Controlling one’s own schedule and activities
Freedom from restraint

A limitation is only permitted when there is a documented threat to the health or safety of the individual or others, and it must be authorized and recorded in the ISP according to Department rules.⁴

Behavior Supports and Restraint Rules

Division 325 draws a hard line on behavior interventions. For adults and children alike, behavior supports may not be abusive, aversive, coercive, demeaning, disciplinary, retaliatory, or used for convenience. Mechanical restraint, prone and supine restraint, and pain compliance techniques are prohibited.⁴

Safeguarding Interventions for Adults

A provider may use a safeguarding intervention or safeguarding equipment with an adult only in two situations: when it is written into a Positive Behavior Support Plan developed by a qualified behavior professional, or when it is included in a medical order from a licensed health care provider addressing a medical condition. Either way, the adult or their legal representative must consent through an individually based limitation documented in the ISP. Staff using the intervention must be trained in an ODDS-approved behavior intervention curriculum and in the specific needs of the adult involved. Emergency physical restraints are a last resort, permitted only when there is an imminent risk of harm and only for as long as the danger lasts.⁴

Additional Prohibitions for Children

Involuntary seclusion of a child is prohibited outright. The banned restraint list for children goes further than for adults and explicitly includes chemical restraint, any restraint that puts pressure on a child’s neck or throat, any that impedes breathing, any involving intentional use of a solid object to block movement (with narrow exceptions for weapon removal), and any action whose primary purpose is to inflict pain.⁴ These prohibitions are absolute. An ISP cannot override them.

License Conditions and Enforcement

The Department can attach conditions to a provider’s license when it identifies a risk or potential risk of harm. Conditions must relate directly to the identified risk and can follow from application or inspection findings, evidence of abuse, or noncompliance with Division 325 or related rules in Divisions 004, 304, 318, and 323.⁴

Possible conditions include restricting how many people a provider may serve, limiting the services offered, requiring additional staff or training, restricting entry of certain people onto the premises, and requiring extra documentation. One entry restriction is mandatory: when a resident’s death triggers a protective services investigation and the provider was responsible for delivering supports at the time, an entry restriction kicks in automatically. It stays in place until the investigation finds abuse or neglect was not a factor, or until the Department is satisfied that adequate protections are in place.⁴

Challenging a Reduction, Transfer, or Termination

When the Department denies, reduces, suspends, or terminates a developmental disability service, it must send a written Notification of Planned Action. The individual or their representative can request a contested case hearing under ORS Chapter 183. The right to a hearing also applies when the Department fails to give timely written notice. Residents facing an involuntary reduction, transfer, or exit by a provider likewise have the right to dispute the action by requesting a hearing.⁶

Federal Medicaid rules add timing protections. Under 42 CFR 431.211, the state must send notice at least 10 days before reducing or terminating services. If the individual requests a hearing before the date of action, services generally continue until the hearing decision is issued, and a favorable decision requires the agency to implement corrective action retroactive to the date of the original incorrect action.⁷

The Federal HCBS Overlay

Division 325 does not stand alone. Oregon’s 24-hour residential programs receive Medicaid funding through home and community-based services waivers, which means they must also comply with the federal HCBS Settings Rule at 42 CFR 441.301. That rule requires person-centered planning led by the individual, community-integrated settings, and protection against institutional qualities such as locked exits, rigid schedules, and lack of privacy. Residential settings must also offer the option of a private unit.⁸

Under the federal rule, residents must be able to control their personal resources, be treated with dignity and respect, be free from coercion and restraint, decide what and when to eat, have visitors, lock their doors, and have the protections of a lease or other legally enforceable agreement. Settings must optimize autonomy and facilitate choice regarding services and providers.⁹ OAR 411-325-0010 ties the two layers together by requiring full compliance with the HCBS requirements in OAR Chapter 411, Division 004.²

The practical result for residents, families, and advocates is that a complaint about an institutional-feeling practice has two homes. It can be raised under Division 325 as a state licensing matter, and it can be raised under the federal Settings Rule as a Medicaid compliance matter. A state practice that falls short of the federal rule can put the program’s Medicaid funding at risk, which gives individuals real leverage when a setting looks and feels less like a home than it should.

1
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Administrative Rules 411-325-0020 – Definitions and Acronyms
2
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Administrative Rules 411-325-0010 – Statement of Purpose
3
Oregon Secretary of State. Oregon Administrative Rule 411-325-0025 – Program Management for 24-Hour Residential Programs and Settings
4
Oregon Department of Human Services. Oregon Administrative Rules Chapter 411 Division 325 – 24-Hour Residential Programs and Settings
5
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Administrative Rules 411-325-0300 – Residency Agreements, Individual Rights
6
Oregon Department of Human Services. Oregon Administrative Rules Chapter 411 Division 318 – Rights and Complaints
7
eCFR. 42 CFR Part 431 Subpart E – Fair Hearings for Applicants and Beneficiaries
8
Administration for Community Living. HCBS Settings Rule
9
eCFR. 42 CFR 441.301 – Contents of Request for a Waiver