AIW Donation & Distribution Center

AIW will have a room dedicated to the donation of clothing and food items at our facility. This room will be situated in a manner conducive to accepting donations, sorting them, and making them easily and readily accessible for our clients and their families. These donations will include women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing and shoes, as well as nonperishable food items. These items will be made available to all clients and distributed in a proportionate manner. Along with everyday clothes, these donations will include professional attire for clients to have for interviews and other professional meetings. AIW will have an employee to oversee the donation and distribution center and will use volunteers when needed to assist in these activities.

AIW Services

AIW services are set out to assist injured workers and their families while they are in the process of having their case approved for disability benefits, so that workers get some help during a time of the uncertainty, financial crisis, and despair. Specifically, AIW will provide case management, family holiday experiences, vocational training assessments and linkage to services, job placement, workshops, and financial assistance for basic needs. In addition,  AIW will provide a resource center.

Eligibility Criteria

1. Eligibility Criteria

In order to be eligible for these services, participants must be an injured worker, or family member of an injured worker, with an adjudicated claim, a filed case with the workers compensation appeals board and possess an adjudicated case number. Workers without an adjudicated claim are not eligible.

1. Assessment and Case Management

Before a worker receives any assistance, s/he must go through an initial assessment. The client must complete an eligibility form. If eligible, an case manager/employment specialist will conduct an assessment to determine which AIW’s activities will better the client’s chances of some quality of life and reentering the workforce. If there are needs that AIW does not provide services for, the client will be linked to other services at another local Community-Based Organization (CBO) that are most relevant to them as an individual and their situation.

1. Holiday Experiences

Injured workers with an adjudicated claim who are waiting for benefits to be approved are usually under financial stress and do not have the means to provide their families with a nice holiday experience. AIW will provide holiday meals to its clients with families and children when needed. Holidays may include Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, but clients can submit an application for a special event such as a child’s graduation. Food and other holiday preparations such as gifts for the children will be purchased by AIW staff. AIW staff and volunteers will organize and distribute these meals.

Registration:  Each client will need to complete an application at the AIW offices or online. For scholarship or financial assistance, the parent must complete a separate application. Applications will be reviewed and approved by at least two persons (board members or designees as reflected by board minutes). Along with the application, there must be attached documentation of eligibility.

Financial Assistance

1. Assistance with Utilities

   AIW will provide financial assistance to help clients in dire need to pay gas, electric, and/or water bills to prevent the shutoff of services. AIW will provide up to three-hundred dollars or an amount decided upon by the board of directors each year. Funds will only be available on a first come first serve basis and approved as funds are available. Clients may only seek assistance from AIW to prevent shutoff of basic utilities once every six months, but no more than twice annually.

   1. Assistance With Rent

   AIW will provide financial assistance for rent for clients with families during the time period when the client is waiting to receive workman’s compensation. Clients will need to submit a separate application for financial assistance and show proof or need through bank statement, a notice of 3 Days or Quite, or any other documentation showing that the worker and his family may be on the threshold of homelessness. The financial assistance will only be made available to clients one time and they are not to exceed one thousand dollars or the amount determined by the board of directors annually.

Job Placement Services

AIW will have an employment specialist on staff that will help to assess the client’s needs for and readiness for job placement. After receiving the appropriate training and/or being assessed as job ready, the clients will be linked to jobs that meet their skill set. This will be done by using AIW’s network of job resources and when needed the client will be referred out to other job placement agencies in the area. These agencies include: 1) Comet Employment Agency, Inc.; 2) AJL Staffing Resources LLC; 3) Express Employment Professionals; 4) Staff It Inc.; 5) CM Staffing Resource Group Inc.; and 6) I Q Personnel.

Resources Center

A resource center will be established at the AIW facility. The resources made available here will include referrals to attorneys, other agencies, government agencies, and overall information for injured workers.

Scholarships

AIW will provide scholarships for our clients and their families to assist them in pursuing a higher education or vocational training. Clients will need to submit a separate application for scholarships, showing acceptance to college or vocational school, and proof of financial need. Scholarships will be given as funds are available.  Funds will be allocated each six months.

Vocational Training Assessment and Services

Sometimes an injured worker is unable to return to the type of work they were originally trained to do. The waiting time is sometimes a time of hopelessness and despair, a time where workers may feel that they’ll never be able to work again. If during this time they can assess vocational training assessment services—services that enable workers to consider and see themselves doing something else, his may lesson the despair and hopelessness. Vocational training assessment services include assessing to see what other type of work a client may like, be good at, and can do in the face of their injury. If the assessment verifies that the client is capable of starting vocational training to better their chances of gaining employment, then the client will be linked to vocational training services. The overall objective of the vocational training assistance program is to link our clients with agencies that can help enhance the existing skills and/or help our clients obtain new skills required to become more marketable and ready to enter full-time employment. In addition to linking clients with local vocational schools, AIW will provide additional resources to these clients in the form of scholarships to partially pay for the schooling.

Workshops

Workshops will be offered to clients based on the need(s) determined from the assessment. AIW will host workshops focusing in the areas of job readiness, interview preparation, financial planning and money management, and government benefits available to people with disabilities. When needed, clients will be referred out to other local workshops in these areas. The goal of these workshops is to assist injured workers is to inform and teach clients basic skills and have the tools for a fulfilling work future.