Awards renamed in honor of Carrie Nevans
The California Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC), a division of the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Carrie Nevans Community Service Award. This year’s award in Southern California goes to Jesse Ceniceros of Voters Injured at Work (VIAW). The Northern California recipient is Dori Rose Inda of the Workers’ Compensation Enforcement Collaborative (WCEC). The awards will be given at the upcoming 18th annual DWC educational conference luncheons.
“This award is about commending those champions whose extra efforts support an effective workers’ compensation system for injured workers and employers,” said DIR Director John C. Duncan. “Nobody embodied that extra effort more than Carrie Nevans. It is fitting that we pay tribute to her memory by renaming this award in her honor.”
Jesse Ceniceros has worked tirelessly to help injured workers understand the workers’ compensation system, despite his own medical challenges. He has been the voice of injured workers on many advisory groups, working with the DWC in an attempt to gain consensus on issues related to return to work, supplemental job displacement benefits and more. He’s also worked directly with many injured workers, legislators and others, always going the extra mile, and often at his own expense, to help workers understand their rights and to advocate on their behalf.
As the chairperson and driving force of the WCEC, Dori Rose Inda has brought the medical, law enforcement and workers’ compensation communities together to find medical resources for injured workers whose employers are illegally uninsured. The WCEC is also actively involved in providing access to the workers’ compensation system and bringing uninsured employers to justice. Bringing these resources together resulted in a pilot project that helped shorten the time it takes an injured worker to access benefits from the Uninsured Employers Benefits Trust Fund (UEBTF) from years to months.
Source: CA DWC