What is a Volunteer Reception Center?
When a disaster occurs in a community volunteers come running to help.
Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of them will arrive with the best
intentions and with skills that are urgently needed but all too often
these volunteers aren't associated with any recognized disaster response
agency. Even volunteers that are linked to disaster response agency need
to have a place to report in order to be assigned to an area that can
use their particular skills. What volunteers do and how they are
utilized has tremendous impact on how quickly and effectively a
community recovers so efficient and organized deployment of all
responding volunteers is crucial
Read
article by: Kathy Lehr
Originally designed to
incorporate spontaneous volunteers into the response for a
natural or manmade disaster, we also process pre-registered, task-identified
Ohio Citizen Corps volunteers, pre-registered professional medical volunteers
who are members of the Ohio Medical Reserve Corps, and, where possible, through
rigid documentation, medical professionals who are not pre-certified, residents
or fellows, medical and nursing students, aids, medical or nursing assistants,
respiratory, physical, and occupational
therapist.
A successful response to a natural or
man-made disaster requires the effort and resources from
a
wide variety of agencies and organizations. A
Volunteer Reception Center is one link in the chain of
responses necessary for an organized disaster response.
Volunteer Reception Centers are typically
established and managed by local Clermont County
organizations. You might considered volunteering the
resources in your organization, business or church to
create a Volunteer Reception Center? You will not
be alone in this effort. The Clermont County Citizen
Corps Council along with the professional training
resources from
First Link and the
Ohio Citizen Corps will be available to train and
assist with the planning and implementation.
We need to plan ahead and establish
functional VRC's in preparation for next natural
disaster or man-made disaster in Clermont County.
If you're curious about the possibility of
getting your organization involved, drop us a note and
we can explain and discuss the possibility. We
need your help.
Read
Community Press article March 20, 2007
Additional info about a VRC
HERE
Contact us at
VRC@clermontcitizencorps.org
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