CAN YOU HELP? THE WINNEBAGO COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT

1. CAN YOU HELP? THE WINNEBAGO COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT MEDICAL RESERVE CORPS

2. Birth of the Medical Reserve Corps • 2002 -President Bush establishes the Department of Homeland Security -Creation of the USA Freedom Corps and partner volunteer agencies including Medical Reserve Corps, Citizen Corps and CERT and others -Each citizen is called upon to devote a total of 2 years’ volunteer service over the course of their lifetime

3. Birth of the Medical Reserve Corps (continued) • 2003 -Medical Reserve Corps program seed funding is established and administration of the program is directed through the Office of the U. S. Surgeon General -2003 Grantees are announced: Winnebago County Health Department is one of 42 selected sponsoring agencies nationwide In March, the process of establishing a local Medical Reserve Corps begins!

4. Why create a Medical Reserve Corps?

5. Response to local disaster, such as: • Large-scale Influenza epidemic • Appearance of other naturally occurring Category A agents such as: • Intentional release of Category A agent • The Health Department is the lead agency under the Unified Command System in the event of a communicable biological disaster

6. Other Public Health Response Activation • In all other emergencies or disasters with adverse public health consequences such as wind storm, tornado, chemical or nuclear spill, leak or incident the health department is not in the lead role. • The Winnebago County Health Department and possibly the Medical Reserve Corps will be activated as needed in conjunction with the appropriate responding agencies, such as county and city ESDA, Fire, Police, area private healthcare systems and others under a Unified Command System.

7. WINNEBAGO COUNTYMEDICAL RESERVE CORPS • VISION - “It is the vision of the Winnebago County Medical Reserve Corps to prepare the citizens of our community to respond with a fully-staffed and trained Corps of volunteers that can, either individually or as part of an organized and deployed Medical Reserve Corps, offer first aid and assistance to persons in need, provide immediate response to the public health consequences of a local disaster and assist with ongoing public health education and initiatives .”

8. WINNEBAGO COUNTYMEDICAL RESERVE CORPS • MISSION - “The Medical Reserve Corps of the Winnebago County Health Department will strive to recruit, organize, train, empower and sustain a volunteer base of medical professionals and interested others for the purpose of community preparedness and public health awareness.”

9. WINNEBAGO COUNTYMEDICAL RESERVE CORPS • VALUES • All activities will be in the interest of improved overall community health. • No activities will conflict with our national interest. • All volunteers will be treated with respect and utilized in accordance with their personal skills and interests as they relate to immediate community health needs.”

10. DEVELOPING OUR MEDICAL RESERVE CORPS

11. Orientation/Training for all “active” or “inactive” Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers • Initial “Basic Training”: Introduction to MRC, Public Health, Home & Family Readiness, Emergency Response and Incident Command (Approx. 2 hours) Completion of skills/interests inventory • Possible Annual or Semi-annual participation in tabletop exercise, on-line web exercise or mid to full-scale drill.

12. The Medical Reserve Corps needs the cooperation of our local medical professionals • We need 5-10 “Active Volunteer” medical professionals to assist with our planning, training, evaluation, etc. Our Active Volunteers will participate an average of 2-4 hours per month and can be involved in a number of ways. • We need 300-400 medical professionals for our database of “Inactive” volunteers. Our Inactive Volunteers will be prepared to answer the call to assist should a large-scale disaster affecting the health of our community, such as an epidemic or intentional biological terrorist act. • We know from our experiences at Oklahoma City and NYC’s twin towers that “spontaneous volunteerism” is extremely inefficient at best and possibly detrimental to necessary rescue efforts,

13. SUSTAINING OUR MEDICAL RESERVE CORPS

14. Other Opportunities for “active” Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers • Participate on an Advisory Committee Level • Participate as an agency or corporate liaison • Participate in Website/Database updates • Participate as an MRC “Trainer” • Participate in Tabletop, satellite webcast or “live” drills or exercises. • Participate in marketing/sponsorship drives • Participate on a command staff level

15. Suggested Optional Advanced Training Modules for MRC partners: -Emergency Response for Public Health & Medical Personnel - 1st Aid/CPR/AED - Infectious Disease Control / Epidemiological Methods - Chemical or Nuclear Exposure; Biological Agents - Mental Health Response in a Disaster or Emergency - Advanced Incident/Unified Command - Cultural Competence in Emergency Response - Risk Communication & Partners in Response - Professional Certification Refreshers/Updates, as available - Other emergency/disaster and public health-related topics, according to interest and availability.