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Establishing: Required and Recommended Volunteer Training

Your MRC unit’s activities are one part of the larger set of activities undertaken on behalf of emergency medicine and public health responsiveness in your community. The MRC plays a specific and smaller supporting role in this case. Similarly, in the scope that your MRC is tasked to accomplish, each volunteer will only undertake a subset of these activities. Not every volunteer will be qualified to do the same MRC-related work.

Part of volunteer orientation and training is developing skill sets as needed to enhance each volunteer’s responsive capabilities.

It also is important to clarify what each volunteer will be qualified to do, based on:

• Prior experience and credentials
• Additional specialty training
• Readiness due to exercising with response partners

Guidelines will have to cover the qualifications needed for each type of activity or role in the MRC. Individuals will need to understand the specific role they will play in a larger response effort and the roles they will not be permitted to fulfill.

Although there is no set curriculum of required training at the national level for MRC volunteers, you will want to determine which training is required of the volunteers in your unit so that they can effectively fulfill their roles in a response.

Basic Core Competencies

In partnership with the National Association of City and County Health Officials, the Office of the Civilian Volunteer Medical Reserve Corps has identified eight core competencies for MRC volunteers. Although these core competencies are not a requirement, they are recommended for all units because they establish a minimum baseline for volunteers that will help them function effectively. These core competencies are appropriate for all volunteers, regardless of background. Competencies for specific medical and health volunteers have not been established at this time.

The basic core competencies encourage volunteers to:

1. Describe the procedure and steps necessary for the MRC member to protect health, safety, and overall well-being of themselves, their families, the team, and the community.
    
2. Document that the MRC member has an existing personal and family preparedness plan.
    
3. Describe the chain of command (e.g., Emergency Management Systems, ICS, NIMS), the integration of the MRC, and its application to a given incident.
    
4. Describe the local MRC unit’s role in public health and/or emergency response and its application to a given incident.
    
5. Describe the MRC member’s communication role(s) and processes with response partners, media, general public, and others.
    
6. Describe the impact of an event on the mental health of the MRC member, responders, and others.
    
7. Demonstrate the MRC member’s ability to follow procedures for assignment, activation, reporting, and deactivation.
    
8. Identify limits to own skills, knowledge, and abilities as they pertain to MRC role(s).

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Last Updated on 12/12/2007