'So as of midnight on the 31st, I had no income and no insurance,' Knight says. Knight learned, however, that the Salvation Army was also exempt from that law. COBRA is a federally created plan that allows an employee who leaves a company to continue to be covered under the company's health plan for a certain time period. 'The part that really threw me for a loop,' Knight says, was when he tried later that evening to extend his insurance under the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA). He also knew that he would receive no unemployment compensation, because his employee handbook states that the Salvation Army, as a church-related organization, is exempt from providing such benefits. Knight's firing was a surprise, he says, but he acknowledges that he and Thornhill had differences over how best to run the program. An employee at Salvation Army's Southern Territorial Headquarters referred a reporter to a public-relations officer, who did not return calls. Fred Thornhill, administrator of the ARC division of the Richmond Salvation Army for three and a half years, told him that his 'service was no longer needed as of that day,' Knight says.Ī person who answered the phone at the local ARC office referred calls to Thornhill, who was on vacation. Knight was fired March 31 with no prior warnings, he says. When Knight arrived, he says, there were few formal programs just 'an AA meeting and a couple of Bible studies.' He instituted group therapy sessions and formal assessments for clients brought a mobile medical unit from Bon Secours once a week for physicals and checkups employed part-time counselors and college interns in the facility and worked with the state to develop release plans for men leaving prison.

The salvation army employee handbook