Imagine you are being recruited by your classmate for their Senior Mental Acuity program.
You know you will be working with people from various cultures and want to make sure you are prepared. Based on your classmates' response to how you would be trained on culturally sensitivities, discuss how prepared or unprepared you would be.
Make one more suggestion to improve your cultural competence in working with theses senior citizens. Nasthia Discussion Many groups such as non profit or community based tend to run off a volunteer based program. The benefit of recruiting members to provide services is a low cost alternative to the company and may be the best choice because many individuals who have the desire to support a cause may hold more personal accountability than an employee who just shows up for a paycheck.
Developing a plan: Organize a lead director who will be the go to person. Appoint a volunteer coordinator. This person, who often reports to the director, may be a staff member, or could be a volunteer himself. Gather information from current staff members. Recruit volunteers who may be interested in the program from prospective volunteer based individuals. Volunteer based recruitments should start with the needs of the people and why they want to volunteer.
Figure out what works best for them, as what they need is based off of how they will perform for you. Remember, they are ultimately there for you and sometimes you may have to bend a little to get a lot. For instance Marsha may not be able to help if there are certain times in which she is needed, she has to be able to work her own schedule and volunteer when she has free time.
Recruit volunteers Screen potential volunteers Conduct orientation of volunteers Train Supervise Retain Reward Part II Senior Mental Acuity Program Recruitment: Reach out to the community using local resources ( ie social media, newspapers, word of mouth,fliers) Ensure the right fit for the job position.
Identify current work and volunteer experience, skills, interests, and motivations for volunteering. Personality traits such as hospitality, humor, kindness, willingness to help those who may react different (out of the norm) those who have coped with their own mental illness lead as an inspiration to those who may be going through the same thing. "Mental health professionals required volunteers to be 'physically healthy and stable, no need of own psychiatric help, self reflective, to be able to take initiative, active, sensible and able to listen." Hold an orientation to give more information on those who are further interested this will help weed out those who may not feel the position will be for them as well as give an opportunity to those who wish to proceed with the remainder of paperwork.
Training would consist of: Expectations and responsibilities of a volunteer Preparation for managing initial meetings General listening skills Boundaries and guidelines Mental illness, stigma, major diagnoses and symptoms Conflict management Guise, V., Chambers, M., Välimäki, M., & Makkonen, P. (2010).
A mixed-mode approach to data collection: Combining web and paper questionnaires to examine nurses' attitudes to mental illness. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 66(7), 1623-1632. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database. Hallett, C., Klug, G., Lauber, C., & Priebe, S. (2012). Volunteering in the care of people with severe mental illness: a systematic review. BMC Psychiatry, 12, 226. http://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-226 University of Kansas, Work Group Community Health and Development. (2012). The community toolbox: Chapter 11: Recruiting and training volunteers.