Should You Volunteer?
Your participation as a volunteer in the State of Connecticut Emergency Credentialing
Program for Healthcare Professionals will greatly strengthen our ability to
quickly and effectively respond to a wide scale disaster. For personal or professional reasons,
however, volunteering for inclusion in the program may not be the right choice
for you to make at this time. To help
you make the right choice, please take a moment to read and consider the
following:
Do you usually:
ê Function well under someone else’s direction and
control
ê
Readily adapt to unfamiliar work place
surroundings and new protocols
ê
Tolerate uncertainty and ambiguous roles and
rules
ê
Establish and maintain structure and routine in
a chaotic environment
ê
Tolerate highly stressful situations while
remaining focused on the task at hand
ê
Communicate effectively with others who are
under stress and not “at their best”
ê
Work well with others in a cooperative spirit
ê
Tolerate noisy work settings
ê
Remain calm in a crisis
ê
Readily access well developed internal coping
skills
ê
Set appropriate limits and attend to self care
needs during the deployment
ê
Seek appropriate peer support during and
following the deployment
ê
Find personal / professional fulfillment in
doing volunteer work that occurs under extraordinary circumstances:
Can you answer “yes” to the following?
ê
I feel adequately prepared for the role I might
play in relationship to my:
o
Professional knowledge base and experience
o
Understanding what my role is likely to be
during a disaster
o
Physical and emotional health Status
ê
I understand emergency response workers are at
elevated risk by virtue of their role
ê
I have considered the potential adverse medical
and psychological consequences of volunteering
ê
I have discussed this decision with loved ones
and reached agreement regarding conditions under which I will accept deployment
as a volunteer and personal risks I am willing to take:
ê
I have my family’s emergency response plan in
place
************************************
1 Developed by
the Center for Trauma Response, Recovery and Preparedness (CTRP)
The Connecticut Department of Mental
health & Addiction Services and the Connecticut Department of Children
& Families in partnership with the University of Connecticut and the Yale
University School of Medicine
September 2004
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