Building Your Volunteer Program: Lessons Learned from the Fairfax Medical Reserve Corps

1. Building Your Volunteer Program: Lessons Learned from the Fairfax Medical Reserve Corps Donna M. Foster, MRC Coordinator Jesse R. Habourn, MRC Database Manager

2. Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) in Fairfax County, VA • Primary function: operate mass dispensing sites • Current membership: 3,100 Medical & non-medical volunteers • 29% medical • 71% non-medical • Secondary functions • Community Health Partners: subset of MRC volunteers distribute health promotion/disease prevention information to public • “Interested in other volunteer opportunities?”

3. Fairfax MRC Planning • All hazards approach using smallpox as framework • Worst case scenario: • Multiple outbreaks • Mass vaccination of all 1.2 million Fairfax County residents within three to five days • Permits scaling down for alternative strategies or targeted events

4. Fundamentals of Fairfax MRC Response Plan • Dispensing sites located at 24 high schools and George Mason University • Requires 54 teams of app. 234 volunteers each • Team will work 12 hour shifts for 3-5 days

5. Fundamentals of Fairfax MRC Response Plan cont’d • Residents arrive at dispensing site via bus pick-up from: • Elementary and middle schools • High school bus stops • 4 satellite locations • Residents with handicap parking stickers may drive to site if necessary • Media to alert residents about the plan

6. Fairfax MRC Organization • Incident Command System (ICS) • Clear chain of command • Easily plug in new volunteers/staff • National standard • Joint partnership: MRC volunteer team, school system staff, Fairfax PD • Incident Coordinator of each share Unified Command

7. One MRC Team 1 Incident Coordinator 104 Site Assistant (min.) 1 Safety Officer 2 Medical Directors 1 Public Info. Officer (Media School) 2 NP/PA 4 Administrative Asst. 41 Registered Nurse 1 Volunteer Coordinator 4 Reg. Nurse Unit Leader 1 Support Branch Director 6 Physician 1 Sup. Branch Deputy Dir. 2 Pharmacist 10 Interpreters (min.) 2 Pharmacy Technician 1 ASL Interpreter 6 Public Health Staff 1 Data Entry Unit Leader 6 Mental Health Professional 24 Data Entry Specialists 6 Greeter (Counselor) 1 Flow Control Unit Leader 6 Special Needs Asst. Total = 234 (min.) Mass Dispensing Site Staffing

8. Critical Success Factors • Realization regarding the magnitude of the problem (Anthrax 2001, 2005 scare) • Executive sponsorship: CAO and Health Officer/Director of jurisdiction support at outset is crucial; eventual endorsement from elected officials • Buy-in from key stakeholders in emergency response (police, fire, schools, transportation, medical community)

9. Lessons LearnedThe Do’s • Develop partnerships with community organizations • Factor diverse and special needs populations into your plan; be ethnically, linguistically sensitive • Dedicate staff resources necessary to develop emergency plan and program infrastructure

10. Lessons LearnedThe Do’s cont’d • Tag onto existing contracts for reverse 911, text/voice alerting systems, etc. to develop your volunteer database (eliminates RFP bidding process) • Utilize NIMS as an organizational concept for response plan • Use physicians in medical roles, not as Incident Coordinators or other leadership positions • Consider using mobile teams for senior and developmentally disabled populations

11. Lessons LearnedThe Do’s cont’d • Develop Job Action Sheets (JAS): list of duties volunteer can expect to perform • Be as detailed as possible – describe every single duty • Create a JAS for each volunteer position in each unit (Nurse will have different duties in Unit A than in Unit B) • This is the core of training! • Always explain that program is evolving and that changes may be made • Practice your plan; adjust as necessary

12. Lessons LearnedThe Don’ts • Don’t start recruiting until plan is in place • Don’t start recruiting until system to manage volunteer information and communication is in place • Don’t let too much time pass between initial volunteer sign-up and first communication • Don’t promise what you can’t deliver

13. Fairfax MRC Alert Network • www.fairfaxmrc.org • Comprehensive online system manages volunteer contact info., communication, participation and program analysis • Scaleable, fully customizable to adapt to changing program • Created by Roam Secure, Inc.

14. Alerting Volunteers with MRCAN • Text alerts to: • E-mail • Cell phones w/ text messaging • Alpha-numeric pagers • PDAs • Initiate remote alerts from cells or pagers • Include attachments

15. MRCAN Features • Grouping • Reporting • Track: • Volunteer contact info • Trainings completed • Replies to alerts • Bounced messages or invalid devices • System usage

16. Planned Improvements to MRCAN • Increased alerting functionality • HTML-based messages • Automated notifications (application approval, training reminders, etc.) • Integrate interactive voice response to reply to alerts • Virtual tour of dispensing site • Generate team rosters and volunteer staffing plans on the fly • GIS compatibility; GIS alerting

17. Planned Improvements to MRCAN • Automate training sign-up process • Logical, exclusion-based application process • Library of information on biological agents, emergency preparedness, etc. • Volunteer photo ID creation/management • Online training capability

18. Advice on Alert Networks • Encourage volunteers to manage own account • Limit e-mail alerts to important announcements only. Limit cell/pager alerts to emergencies and annual tests only • Provide wealth of tech. support material • Have plan to deal with spam blockers and volunteers without e-mail accounts/cells, etc. • Make website a place volunteers want to visit instead of a place they’re required to visit • Install a backup server

19. Use volunteers to recruit others Get your local politicians involved Capitalize on current events re: issue news releases (e.g. recent anthrax scare) Target non-essential public workers Direct mail to: Pharmacists Nurses Physicians Recently retired first responders, military personnel and jurisdiction employees Physicians recruit physicians; phone calls seem to work best Recruitment Strategies

20. Training Provided • All members receive: • General orientation • Role-specific training • Participate in annual exercise • Leaders additionally receive: • Leadership/Incident Command • Hands on Practice • Leadership Meeting at Assigned Site • Over 1/3 of volunteers have participated in training as of early April 2005 • E-newsletter Fairfax MRC News

21. Thank you!