FAQs - Emergencies Partnership
Frequently Asked Questions relating to the work volunteers may be asked to do by an organisation seeking extra support.
District members please log in for more information.
Please click on the links below to see answers:
The Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership is a partnership of local and national voluntary and community sector organisations. It was formed in response to learnings from several 2017 national crises, including Grenfell Tower fire.
Bringing together local, national and global expertise from the sector, the Emergencies Partnership aims to help people prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies, so that they can rebuild their lives.
Yes, it's already on the referral forms being used by external organisations. When the national role is finally agreed it should be on the Cell and National documents.
The organisation that has requested additional support via the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership will be required to undertake risk assessments for all aspects of work being undertaken by their volunteers. This should be checked by the local Rotary Club involved.
If Rotary organise an event then it is the local club that must undertake a full risk assessment.
Your club lead will hear about a need for volunteering support from a Rotary Area Co-ordinator (these are now all in place with a deputy) who will receive information from:
- a VCS EP Area Voluntary Sector Liaison organisation
- the Resilience Team through the District Resilience Officer
- direct contacts to your Rotary Club in the normal way.
This initiative needs to be set up in days not weeks, and needs a sense of immediacy and urgency within clubs.
We are initially concentrating on the east of the District where the response will be needed first, but hoping all clubs will agree their Lead and Deputy as soon as possible so that your local Area Rotary Area Co-ordinator will have someone in your club as a point of contact to share volunteer needs/actions with as soon as your area needs volunteers.
This is highly dynamic and requests for help will change a great deal over the coming days and weeks. Typically, we could be called on for transportation and delivery, marshalling at Covid centres, traffic management, providing guidance including funding advice, mental health and wellbeing support, carrying out Covid-19 tests at care homes and delivering food parcels.
All Rotarians will need to ensure that they respond as is appropriate to their personal situation with regards to age and health, so that they keep safe. We must also ensure that all volunteering takes place following government guidelines of the day. Rotarians only volunteer if they wish to.
All volunteers will be equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE) and anything else identified by the organisation undertaking the risk assessments in meeting the requirements of the task. Most tasks won't need any, e.g. befriending phone calls.
Training will be provided in accordance with the tasks.
Red Cross is the lead body nationally.
Each Club Lead will keep a log of volunteering with dates and hours (proforma to be agreed). The Rotary Area Co-ordinator will maintain a log of requests and actions. They will retain the referral forms with outcomes as well as the request. It's all new. At the moment all actions are copied to Assistant Governors and the Resilience Officer so they can see the volume of requests, actions and outcomes. This is to cut down on asking co-ordinators what is happening. We'll agree format and what is reasonable and keep everything as simple as possible.
We have put in place group emails for working with the eternal organisations so personal emails are not shared. When a Rotarian volunteers is it up to them who they share their details with, but it's likely some personal details will be requested for health and safety reasons. It's a volunteer's choice what they share. No data is handed over externally by District.
We hope all. You will, however, be given the break down and names of those who have taken on key roles in your area.
It works alongside it.
They have a communication team in place, a website at https://vcsep.org.uk and local liaison organisations have shared across their networks. The Resilience team in Kent is leading for our Cell (covering from north of London to Hampshire). More information will be made available as known.
The provider of the request whose name is on the request form. The urgency level is also shown on the request form. Individual Rotarians decide if it is suitable for them to volunteer.
We would be really surprised if a Rotary Club opted out. We are a service organisation and it would be most disappointing if there weren't some Rotarians in every Club who would be willing to help with tasks appropriate to their age, skills and health. There will be a variety of tasks and many will be familiar to Rotarians. The response so far has been really positive with Rotarians stepping up in times of need.
That depends on the task you are asked to do. If you are just sharing information about local needs no, but if you are undertaking a befriending role then yes. Hence - as appropriate.
The organisation requesting support will be responsible for ensuring that all volunteers working for the organisation are properly insured for the work they are being asked to do.
For any Rotary organised activities, Aviva (Rotary's insurer) says it is fully supportive of all volunteers that are coming forward to assist in these unprecedented times and have confirmed that Rotary's policy will extend to include activities needed to support the elderly and vulnerable that are undertaken by Clubs in the name of Rotary; in providing services such as prescription collection, food deliveries and working in food-banks.
According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), NHS Volunteer Responders and others who are volunteering to help their communities during the coronavirus outbreak do not need to contact their insurer to update their documents or extend their cover.
If you are using your own car for voluntary purposes to transport medicines or groceries to support others who are impacted by Covid-19, your cover will not be affected. You do not need to contact your insurer to update your documents or extend your cover. This applies to NHS Volunteer Responders, including transporting patients, equipment, or other essential supplies. If you are a Community First Responder or other 'Blue Light' volunteer, then please contact your insurer or broker.
back to page above this...
Emergencies Partnership
back Rotary supporting the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership