Photo via Avail website

Launched in 2017 by Lisa Marie Clinton, avail by CentralReach aids employees with intellectual and developmental disabilities to complete tasks in the workplace, opening employers to a previously unserved community of employees.

Avail software utilizes both app and web-based portals accessible to employees on either a mobile device or tablet — and has proven itself with at least one Fresno company.

“Avail acts as a virtual job coach to support individuals in developing the necessary skills required to enter the job market, as well as providing onsite support once he or she gets a job,” Clinton said.

After spending more than 12 years of her professional career within the disability space, Clinton launched avail software after delivering applied behavioral analysis (ABA) support to a 5-year-old autistic child named Liam.

She explained that after seeing Liam looking at photos on an iPad, Clinton was inspired to digitize her teaching prompts, allowing Liam and his family to have round-the-clock access to these teaching prompts as a digital therapy program.

“At the time, I was completing my master’s, which formed the underpinning research for the avail software,” Clinton said.

Avail, which is based in Ireland, is partnered with CentralReach, the leading provider of autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) care that enables children and adults with IDDs to live more independent lives.

Local Fresno water-tech company Grundfos has utilized avail software for employee Stacy Hill for over a year, and the results have been positive for both Hill and the company.

“It’s helped me tremendously,” Hill said. “I’m able to perform my tasks. I’m able to go to supervisors and ask them to order more materials for me; it’s helped out tremendously.”

Hill, who started working with Grundfos on a paid internship in 2021, now works part time there, assembling parts including terminal boxes and capacitors.

“I listen to them [avail videos] in the morning and I listen to them every day,” Hill said.

Grundfos began using avail software around the same time Hill started working for the company according to her supervisor and team lead Antonio Espinoza.

Other local employers including Arc of Fresno and Madera Counties support their employment programs with CentralReach’s avail software, along with thousands more employment agencies, employers, transition programs and schools.

“If you think about the instructions or prompts as what a job coach would provide a person with a disability, the avail system can digitize these prompts via video, pictural, audio and text,” Clinton said. “The digitalization of these directions reduces the reliance on 1:1 person instruction, allowing the individual to feel independent and confident while using a self-directed tool.”

According to the California Employment Development Department (EDD), just over 10% of employees suffer from IDDs.

Since utilizing avail technology, the Arc of Fresno has seen a 76% increase in skills mastered with remote support, as well as two hours a week of increased learning opportunities. It has also resulted in $240 monthly savings per individual.

“CentralReach’s autism and IDD care software provides a suite of solutions to serve the lifelong journey of care at home, at school and in the workplace,” Clinton said.