Author: LCDR Skip Payne, Program Officer, Division of the Civilian Volunteer Medical Reserve Corps
Do you wonder how to utilize eager volunteers when there is not an emergency? We all do from time to time. During the early stages of a disaster response, we are often inundated with resources but lack the human assets we need to accomplish the desired goals. Fortunately for us, many volunteers eagerly step up to fill the needs during the crisis.
The real struggle is not keeping volunteers busy during the immediate emergency phase of an event, but keeping enough activities flowing year-round to engage volunteers in the “off season.” Keeping volunteers busy during slow periods increases the probability that they will be with you during the “big one.” Volunteer coordinators and emergency managers should consider Disaster Risk Reduction activities to maintain the involvement of their volunteers during the off season.
Disaster Risk Reduction is defined by the United Nations as the “concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters.” The stated aim is to reduce exposure to hazards and to lessen vulnerability by reducing or minimizing the exposure impact. Although reducing direct exposure to hazards arguably involves more political and social capital than any small group of volunteers may hold, reducing vulnerabilities via exposure, susceptibility, and increased resiliency is well within the reach of direct volunteer action. The following are four ways to engage volunteers in disaster risk reduction:
1. Participating in Community Assessments
Volunteers can help your community determine which vulnerability interventions and related reduction activities are reasonable. Utilizing volunteers trained to assist with established community level assessments, such as the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response toolkit, can also inform Public Health’s understanding of the community’s needs.
2. Crafting the Intervention and Activities
Volunteers often have a better understanding of the subtleties of the groups with which they belong and interact. This awareness allows them to provide types of input in the planning and customization of interventions and activities that government planners may not fully appreciate. Therefore, volunteer involvement can assist with preventing negative impacts on an otherwise successful outcome through the sharing of volunteers’ insights on the community and its key players, culture, and potential risks. In addition, volunteers can bring subject matter expertise, such as veterinary, pharmacy, and program evaluation, which might not be readily available on staff at the local health department.
3. Delivering the Intervention
One difficulty encountered while delivering interventions and activities is determining how to meet people where they are within the community. Governmental agencies vary, depending upon the level and type, in the amount of public trust they garner from members of their communities. Oftentimes, governmental agencies cannot rely on positive intentions alone to carry their desired interventions forward.
Although social media and various newer technologies are bridging the gap of governmental hierarchy, it is still generally accepted that individuals place the most trust in the levels of government closest to them. Volunteers, as part of the community and acting of their own free will for something they personally support, are more likely to overcome these (actual or perceived) governmental trust barriers and to reach the communities with a targeted message. Engaging those experienced and trained volunteers will not only enhance intervention targeting and access, but may also improve the fidelity of the interventions. Fidelity, generally defined, is the best practice or the intended manner of how the intervention should be rolled out, and it supports comparability across like interventions.
4. Gauging the Effect of Interventions and Activities
Applying metrics is a necessary, but often overlooked, aspect of local public health preparedness activities that includes interventions. These metrics need to be collected and interpreted locally to gain an accurate understanding of the new circumstances; no two geographies are directly comparable, and information is lost in the comparison of the disparate populations. In order to gauge the success of an intervention, the baseline risk (determined in the community assessment) must be compared to the new, hopefully reduced, risk. Volunteers can assist in this by repeating the community assessment mentioned earlier or by participating in other intervention-related evaluation projects.
The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is an example of a group of volunteers already participating in a variety of ways to reduce risk and vulnerabilities in their communities. The MRC is a national network of community-based units consisting of medical, public health, and other volunteers working to improve the health, safety, and resilience of the area where they live and work. MRC volunteers have helped develop trainee evaluations of various trainings based on best practices (e.g., community mass care, medical triage, psychological first aid). MRC volunteers have also helped design a public health active surveillance system for childhood nutrition and fitness programs, dental screenings for children, and other health promotion activities.
While the preceding four points do not cover the full depth and breadth of the support that volunteers can give in community-level Disaster Risk Reduction Interventions and Activities, they will hopefully trigger some ideas for volunteer managers, emergency managers, and even potential volunteers. To learn more about Disaster Risk Reduction, you can to listen to the recorded Principles of Planning for Disaster Risk Reduction conference call hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To learn more about the Medical Reserve Corps and how MRC volunteers can help your community, talk to your local MRC leader. Visit http://mrc.hhs.gov/FindMRC and search by your city or zip code.
