News

Becoming an MRC Leadership Volunteer

Many Franklin County & Columbus Medical Reserve Corps (FC&C MRC) volunteers have contacted our offices interested in becoming Leadership Level volunteers. That’s great! We are glad to have you. Leadership Level participation allows volunteers with an interest in taking on more responsibility in a disaster to help us keep Franklin County healthy through any type of disaster. It requires no regular or weekly time commitment, only four hours of volunteer time per year, in addition to a series of trainings. This important and valuable role in your community requires each volunteer to complete the following:

• The FC&C MRC Orientation, either in-person or online
• The online National Incident Management System trainings 100 and 700
• Participation in an exercise or drill
• Safety: Non-Medical folks need the MRC on-line HIPAA and blood borne pathogens training modules
• Psychological First Aid or other Mental Health in Disasters Course
• Volunteer time of at least four hours per year
• Additional training of your choice, once per year, as a ‘refresher’

If you have already completed any of these trainings in another setting, proof of course completion can be presented to the FC&C MRC Coordinator. Each Leadership Team volunteer must also choose to serve on at least one of our response teams. We have currently launched five response teams, and will continually be adding more as volunteers become interested in different areas. As of today, volunteers may sign up for either the Techie, Somali Language, Spanish Language, American Sign Language or POD Team. Ready to get started? Great! The first step is to let the FC&C MRC Coordinator know you are working towards becoming a leadership level volunteer, as many of you have already done. The next step is to attend an MRC orientation, like the one being held on October 24th (see page 2). Once those two steps are complete, you can start working on your online courses. These are very straightforward courses, and after completing the orientation session, volunteers should be prepared for them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suggests that all disaster responders take two online courses in the Incident Command System, ICS 100, Introduction to Incident Command System; and 700, National Incident Management System. Ask the FC&C MRC Coordinator for directions about how to complete these courses. Once the course is complete, please email or mail a copy of your certificate to the FC&C MRC Coordinator, Robin Franz, at mrc@franklincountyohio.gov.