volunteers' program- any resources available?

frankie · Oct 12, 2002

Canoehead, I do not have experience with high school volunteers, but I did use volunteers (age 45 and up) to staff a cardiac rehab front desk/reception area. The first thing I did was write a job description. I talked with staff, friends, teachers, and trusted advisors. When I had the clear picture in my mind - I went to the hospital volunteer coordinatior, the senior/geriatric coordinator, the geriatric clinical specialist, the psych nurse clinical specialist, the cardiac clinical specialist, the foundation receptionist, and the director of social services. Talking with these people further refined my idea, and several of them had great ideas for recruiting. The volunteer coord. did supply me with people, but I got the most volunteers from networking with the patients and their families, and our own patients. As they graduated out of cardiac rehab, they would volunteer, and so would their spouses. The whole thing was such a success, I ended up providing free wellness memberships (a 30 dollar value) to all volunteers who worked 4 hours or more per week. And they got free lunch too - good luck with this - frankie

meandragonbrett · Oct 12, 2002

Canoe,

Just a word of advice. From my experience as a teenaged volunteer. Make sure you pick and choose the volunteers that you accept very wisely. The first year we had 150 teens volunteer we had major problems with many of them so the next year that number was cut to 50 teens and every applicant had to sumbit a 200 word essay on why they wanted to be involved with the program. We had no problems this summer. I think the essay weeded out the applicants who weren't serious about it.

Brett

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Oct 12, 2002

Thank you folks, great ideas.

Keep em coming.