EMA/Volunteer Partnership (RB336)

It takes an unusual volunteer to provide dedicated and competent service to emergency management agencies, EMA. Such volunteers must be ready to appear on short notice, stay at their assigned post and duties until relieved, be willing and able to travel where needed. They may even provide the necessary equipment at their own expense. They cannot be "amateurs" in the sense of pursuing a hobby. Instead they must devote a great deal of time and energy to become as proficient as paid staff. The agency they work with must be able to depend upon their availability when needed, their skill at assigned tasks, and their ability to mesh into the overall disaster response exactly as is expected of paid staff. Fortunately there are people, ready, willing and able to serve in such capacity.

Such a pool of qualified volunteers is a resource, the value of which often becomes overwhelmingly evident when a major emergency threatens to exceed the capabilities of paid staff and equipment. Like any other resource, volunteers must receive adequate training, needed facilities, and the attention and general upkeep that is accorded any other resource. Recognition of the contribution to the tasks at hand should be as professional as anything else in the relationship. As with any staff, they respond to honest reassurance that their work is recognized and respected; however, their service will be quickly lost if they are merely tolerated, or seen as a nuisance.

If the EMA makes a positive effort to integrate this nominally "free" resource, allocate time, energy, and people to use it to best advantage, provide its necessary resources, and develop it as they do with any other resource, it develops a relations hip with an open ended potential. It also extends agency capabilities in many directions while providing satisfaction to the volunteers for their time and efforts.

Bill Musladin, N6BTJ, retired Chief State Radio Officer.