Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

Chapter 9 Volunteers 161
RECRUITING VOLUNTEERS TO ASSIST IN EMERGENCIES
In order to encourage people to volunteer in emergencies, it is important
to recruit and train the leaders and then the volunteers. The emphasis for
recruiting volunteers to participate in community preparedness should
be on empowerment—focusing on their and the community’s strengths,
mobilizing the community’s capabilities, and helping the community become
self-sufficient following a disaster. Being part of and identifying with
a community affects whether and for how long individuals choose to
volunteer (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006).
Once leaders are recruited and trained, the next step is to engage
other community volunteers in emergency preparedness. The challenge
is to convince well-meaning people that the first step in providing effective
assistance to others during a disaster is to become personally prepared
(Glass, 2001). As the All Together Now program showed, leaders
and volunteers need to understand the basic concepts of disasters, the disaster
the particular community is likely to face, and the potential dangers
related to such disasters (Glass). All volunteers are trained to first
prepare an emergency plan for themselves and their families. The research
available demonstrated that responses are more effective with good
planning and preparedness at the household level (Ronan & Johnson,
2005). Not only will volunteers then have a better understanding of planning
for emergencies, but also having their own plan in place will provide
them a sense of security and control and will allow them to focus on assisting
others during a disaster.
Engaging the community in developing an emergency plan by identifying
leaders and recruiting volunteers creates a great opportunity for
the public to become aware of the community’s emergency needs; it also
allows people to feel they can make a real difference before, during, and
after a disaster (Skinner, 2008).
VOLUNTEER INCENTIVES
The key themes from the literature review on volunteering incentives
were individual motives, personal connections to organizations and causes,
and side benefits arising from volunteering (Padraig, 2008). The desire
to feel valued and useful and the desire to feel vital and physically active
were the two most commonly cited reasons for individual volunteering