COMMUNITY ACCESS

Community Access, Inc. (CAI) a nonprofit 501(c)(3), was founded in 1992 by a special education teacher in Charleston, WV to provide supported employment and follow-up services for students with disabilities transitioning from high school to the world of employment. While job training was the initial focus of the agency, the staff at CAI was asked to assist in a wide range of other services by a variety of community stakeholders. So in short order a consumer driven, grassroots organization emerge... d, which over the last two decades has undertaken a number of projects designed to focus on unmet needs in their community. The staff at CAI is committed to the idea of systems change. Instead of the traditional fee-for-service model, they operate primarily from state and federal grant funding. This methodology has enabled us to design more cost-effective, person-friendly, programming strategies. Whether assisting a returning veteran with traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, training a special education teacher to become a vendor with the West Virginia Division of Rehabilitation Services and work with their own students as adults, or finding less costly and better community options to a nursing home placement, their programs are designed to look at alternatives to the bureaucratic "business as usual" model.wMore