About Illinois Welcoming Centers
Illinois Welcoming Centers provides wrap-around services such as health care, child care, housing and workshops on employment and education to immigrants and refugees in the state. Illinois Welcoming Centers is based in the Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Welcoming Centers for Refugee and Immigrant Services, which began in 2007 as a group of one-stop service delivery centers to help immigrants and refugees navigate essential services, including those administered by the state.
Illinois Welcoming Centers uses a grassroots service model that creates community-based organization partnerships. The community-based organization welcoming centers provide linguistically and culturally relevant support, such as connections for individuals and families to state services and resources and nonprofit-based assistance. They conduct outreach and education workshops to provide essential resources and necessary information.
The Illinois Department of Human Services Illinois Welcoming Centers initiative funds a significant percentage of community-based organizations across the state to use culturally and linguistically tailored approaches to support and serve hard-to-reach members of immigrant and refugee communities, including those living with disabilities. This program offers a mix of strategic tools and resources to each grantee, aligning with organizational missions and day-to-day operations.
The Illinois Department of Human Services Illinois Welcoming Centers initiative works closely with all its grantees and the UIC strategic capacity-building team.
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I’m very, very pleased to know that you are doing this, because I think the country needs to know what kind of work has been done at the welcoming centers in a time when immigrant communities have been, so to speak, put in the line of fire.
| Former IWC cofounder
More information about IDHS Welcoming Centers
Associate director Lilian Jiménez introduces the Office of Welcoming Centers Heading link
About the Immigrant and Refugee-Led Capacity Development Network Heading link
The Immigrant and Refugee-Led Capacity Development Network of Illinois is a statewide partnership initiative focused on strategic development efforts between the Illinois Welcoming Centers and 17 community-based organizations that receive welcoming center grants. The network is a collaboration overseen by a team of researchers, program managers, outreach staff and information technology specialists from UIC to showcase the grantees and help them increase welcoming centers capacity.
The Immigrant and Refugee-Led Capacity Development Network is a needs- and strengths-based assessment. Its primary aim is to increase the organizational and service capacities of welcoming centers across Illinois by conducting basic assessments of the grantees, sharing the results with the state and grantees leadership and staff. Seventeen community-based organization welcoming centers were selected for the initial phase, to enable them to better serve new and emerging immigrant and refugee communities, including those who live with disabilities. This website guides users through the project, a partnership of the state, university and community.
The UIC team’s role as strategic consultants
As the project’s lead strategic consultant, UIC’s Institute on Disability and Human Development partnered with the Office of Welcoming Centers and 17 selected community-based organization welcoming centers in this initial phase to meet the project goals and objectives.
The Institute on Disability and Human Development is one of 67 University Centers of Excellence in Disability Service, Training, and Research.
The institute received funding in December 2020 from the Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Welcoming Centers for Refugee and Immigrant Services to be lead consultant for the Illinois Welcoming Centers program and as an intermediary between the state and the community-based organization welcoming centers themselves.
Our primary role as intermediary is to establish multi-sector collaborations that help promote the sharing of knowledge and strategies within and across the Illinois Welcoming Centers network.
The project identifies strategies and procedures to promote service access and participation for marginalized immigrant and refugee communities, including members who have limited English proficiency and/or disabilities.
The Immigrant and Refugee-Led Capacity Development Network uses a community-driven participatory approach. The project is guided by two advisory boards at executive and community levels. Board members provide ongoing input and direction to enhance the capacities of the welcoming centers and the Illinois network.