Disaster Volunteers

Disaster Volunteers: Recruiting and Managing People Who Want to Help provides readers with information on why people volunteer, the benefits gained by volunteers and recipients, and how to leverage such good will. Learning lessons from a variety of past disasters, readers will gain realistic insights into the challenges of disaster contexts. Coupled with evidence-based best practices, the book organizes and illustrates the necessary steps needed to recruit, train, manage, reward and retain volunteers throughout the lifecycle of disasters. Sections walk both organizations and individuals through the entire process of volunteer engagement, from recruiting and training, to managing and rewarding/retaining volunteers. This important resource fills an existing gap in books on volunteer disaster management by incorporating research, generating sound recommendations, grounding ideas in a disaster context, and offering an inviting set of examples from which readers can learn. Includes appendix with sample materials that can be used by civic or faith-based organizations Provides case studies that offer first-hand experiences and bring the content to life Includes stepwise advice on how to recruit, train and retain a diverse set of disaster volunteers

Volunteer work can make a difference to those harmed by natural, technological, and human-induced disasters if it is done well. Disaster Volunteers provides readers with information on why people volunteer, the benefits gained by volunteers and recipients, and how to leverage such good will. Learning from a variety of past disasters, readers will gain realistic insights into the challenges of disaster contexts. Equipped with evidence-based best practices, Dr. Phillips organizes and illustrates necessary steps to recruit, train, manage, reward, and retain volunteers throughout the life cycle of disasters. This important resource walks both organizations and individuals through the entire process of volunteer engagement from recruiting and training to managing as well as rewarding and retaining volunteers and provides an engaging and informative set of useful and evidence-based chapters. Disaster Volunteers fills an existing gap in books on volunteer disaster management by incorporating research, generating sound recommendations, grounding ideas in a disaster context, and offering an inviting set of examples from which readers can learn. Includes sample materials for use by emergency managers, emergency managers, civic and faith-based organizations Provides case studies offering first-hand experiences that help bring the content to life Includes stepwise advice to recruit, train, and retain a diverse set of disaster volunteers

While history has identified a need for improved coordination during emergencies, it has also demonstrated that community volunteers positively impact their neighborhoods during times of crisis. Laying out the rationale and process by which emergency managers, community leaders, and non-governmental aid organizations can effectively collaborate and integrate citizen response, Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters explains how to engage, train, and utilize spontaneous unaffiliated community volunteers (SUCV). The book prepares leaders to integrate local volunteers into any scale emergency response. Protocols and flexible management solutions are outlined to ensure safe and effective planning and execution. Work templates provided can be modified to suit the needs of any community. This accessible manual provides the tools to: Assess your agency’s role, tasks, and challenges to meet community needs in a disaster Build a plan for managing SUCVs by developing internal and external protocols Develop effective spot screening and selection methods Engage community members in information-sharing and outreach campaigns Consider policies and procedures that create relevant roles for volunteers and community groups to build a resilient team for disaster recovery Provide National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant answers to address common barriers to using SUCVs Combining field experience and psychosocial research, the book makes a strong case as to why community involvement in disaster response will have a positive impact on a community’s resilient recovery. Praise for Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters: All emergency management coordinators can benefit from this book. —Howard Butt, New Jersey State Police, State CERT Coordinator Lisa Orloff has done an excellent job in both identifying a significant opportunity in emergency response and meticulously outlining how that opportunity can best be leveraged. —Dr. Michael Chumer, New Jersey Institute of Technology The Alliance for Nonprofit Management has nominated the book for the Terry McAdam Award. This award is bestowed upon the Committee's choice for the most inspirational and useful new book published for the nonprofit sector.

".a spiritual resource for Lutheran Disaster Response volunteers. it includes 24 devotions for you to use as you prepare to head out, as you work on site, and when you return home."--P. 7.

"Human action is guided by social structure, but there are also many situations in which behavior is improvised, emergent, and outside conventional normative constraints. This book focuses on these types of occasions, which include panics, crowds, social movements, and organized behavior following disasters. Social scientists in the fields of collective behavior, social movements, and disaster research study these topics. E. L. Quarantelli, cofounder and longtime director of the Disaster Research Center (DRC), is one of those scholars; indeed, he has devoted his career to understanding them. Quarantelli's impact on the fields of disaster research and collective behavior is traced in the foreword to this volume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Offers practical advice on becoming a volunteer, looks at particular social problems, and lists agencies state-by-state

The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies. Includes guidelines for governments, communities and businesses in areas where similar complex disasters are likely to occur Provides information, propositions, suggestions and advice from the people that were involved in making suggestions to the Japanese government Features case studies (both pre- and post-disaster) of three simultaneous disasters: the Great East Japan earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster