The refugee and immigrant center at the asian association of utah (ric-aau) was founded in 1977 and is a private, non-profit, community-based organization located in salt lake city. Originally established to support asian immigrants and refugees in their transition to life in the united states, the organization has expanded its resources and services over the past 37 years to assist refugees and immigrants from around the world. Today, we serve over 2,000 refugees, immigrants, and other community members each year. With over 60 staff members, our backgrounds cover 17 countries and over 30 languages. We are devoted to helping clients become more self-sufficient in their daily lives, and aim to reduce the barriers that refugees and immigrants face when adapting to life in the u. S. With the help of staff, volunteers, and community leaders, we are continually developing and expanding our services to meet the needs of our clients. We offer comprehensive services in one physical location, re

Ethnic & Immigrant Centers , Human Services , Immigration

See schedule o refugee employment & social services the employment program assist utah's refugees overcome the challenges of unemployment and underemployment and move forward on the path towards self-sufficiency and integration. Ric-aau's job developers, refugees themselves, provide intensive employment case management services, job skills education, and career planning; taking into consideration each client's culture, needs, education, past employment experience and skills, and potential barriers. The program has 3 funding streams, each with its own target population and implementation with the same overall goal of assisting refugees find and maintain employment. Targeted assistance grant (tag) : the tag program focuses on providing support for refugee work-readiness through job search preparation, skills-building and case management to assist in overcoming employment barriers and other situations that may jeopardize employment. The program also includes a significant refugee community organization capacity building component, partnering with three key refugee communities (congolese, somali, and sudanese) to provide training, monitoring and mentoring so they can serve their own communities in the future. Work readiness english as a second language (wresl): wresl provides a six month intensive curriculum for newly arrived refugees, focused on developing work readiness skills to help them attain the skills needed to find and retain long-term employment. Preference is given to pre-literate refugees who are single parents with one or more dependent children or to refugees in a two parent household with one or more dependent children where one parent has a physical or mental incapacity. Payroll grant: through a collaborative partnership with department of workforce services (dws) and lds church, refugees are placed either at the humanitarian center or deseret industries manufacturing. Refugees who participate in this program are scheduled for an eight hour work day, which consists of four hours of hands on work and four hours of classroom education. The lds church pays for the four hours of work and dws pays for the four hours of education. Fy 2017 accomplishments: the organization matched refugees with 300 job placements, 87% which were full-time placements. Average hourly wage of all placements was 10, which exceeds utah's minimum wage by nearly 3. Partnered with over 180 employers to help refugees secure employment social services social services provides comprehensive, wrap-around case management services to second migration refugees, asylees, special immigrant visa (siv) and parolee clients who resettle in utah. Case managers provide assistance with: health and mental health care, legal matters, public transportation, safe and affordable housing, school enrollment, and other critical matters. Each step of the way, we emphasize teaching clients how to access resources and navigate systems themselves, empowering them to become more self-sufficient. Our case managers are refugees themselves and bring 23 different languages to serve our refugee clients. The case management team is culturally aware of the barriers facing refugees and provide the best services possible to meet the needs of our clients. The social services program is funded by the department of workforce services and the utah health policy project. Extended case management (ecm): the ecm program provides case management services for refugees, aslyees, sivs, and parolees up to 24 months of their arrival to the u. S. The purpose is to bridge the gap between refugees and the resources necessary for integration in the u. S. Temporary assistance for needy families grant - family preservation (tanf- fp) the purpose of this program is to serve refugees that are tanf eligible (must have children under the age of 18 and meet income requirements) and have exceeded their two year ecm program. There is no time limit for their arrival in the united states. These cases