In an effort to help alleviate the financial hardship workers face when injured on the job, the Injured Workers’ Advocacy Program (IWAP) is introducing the ground-breaking financial Gap Assistance Benefit for injured workers.
“Part of our mission,” noted Joe Dougherty, who founded IWAP with his brother Brian Dougherty, “is to advocate on behalf of working men, women and families and to make a positive difference in their lives in the case of a work-related injury.”
IWAP (www.iwapusa.org) is a comprehensive, non-profit, 501c3 program created for the purpose of improving all phases of the injured worker’s experience. The Gap Assistance Benefit is a grant program that offers injured workers financial assistance between the time when they are injured on the job and time when they receive their workers compensation benefits determination of coverage decision.
“This is a new way for us to provide much needed services to workers. IWAP, and the Gap Assistance Program specifically, allow us to address problems that have often been overlooked when it comes to caring for injured workers,” explained Dougherty. “The charitable benefit helps to lessen the initial financial strain a worker faces when he or she is injured on the job. As previously injured workers, my brother and I understand what that kind of stress feels like. We created IWAP and the Gap Assistance Program because we didn’t want other injured workers to suffer the same hardships that we did.”
IWAP also offers educational services, grants and scholarships for the purpose of career retraining to injured workers who are unable to return to work, or unable to return to the line of work in which they were previously employed. In addition, IWAP provides injured workers with professional consultations to help advise them on their rights and responsibilities when they get inured.
IWAP and the Gap Assistance Program are currently available to workers in the Southeastern Pennsylvania/Greater Philadelphia region with plans for future expansion into other areas of the country.
To learn more IWAP and the Gap Assistance Benefit, including how to pre-register and qualify for the program, go to: www.iwapusa.org.
