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Responses to:
Confidentiality and Other Objections to Volunteers
Submitted June 19, 2009 by Gary Lynch,
Volunteer Services Coordinator,
Tyler, Texas USA
As the Volunteer Services Coordinator with a Police Department, I get some pretty interesting arguments involving confidentiality, training and liability. Obviously, there are some areas where it would cause legal complications for a volunteer to be involved. However, there are many more areas where volunteers can be used.
My approach involves: (1) moving slowly with a new idea to keep the "change resistors" happy; (2) explaining that volunteers are living, breathing intelligent people who can be trained and held to a standard defined in clear, concise Job Descriptions (3) as for liability, as stated in the topic, anyone can have an accident or be injured -- the key to avoiding it is safety training over and over and over. This is just as true for both paid staff and volunteers.
Submitted on 16 April 2009 by Mitch Towe,
Washington County Health System,
Director, Volunteer Services,
Hagerstown, MD USA
Let us not become afflicted with the paralysis of analysis. Any of the problems listed in the essay that could happen with a volunteer becoming an employee could just as well not happen. The reality is, a volunteer is free to apply for and compete for a job for which she is qualified, and she can be her own best reference while volunteering. If it doesn't work out, well, it might not have worked out if the person had never volunteered first. And what about the cycle of volunteerism, where volunteers start an organization, get so busy and big that they have to become the employees and then they have to recruit volunteers to help out, who then become employees, and so on? Something similar is in your book!
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