General
Volunteers must NOT:
- Volunteer at RMHCA under a court-mandated referral.
- Smoke inside the building. Smoking is only permitted in the designated smoking hut located in the back alley.
- Give gifts or gratuities to any particular guest (bringing goodies for all guest families is fine, bringing a gift for one child is not).
- Assume responsibility for a guest child (no babysitting).
- Provide transportation to any guest.
- Be alone with any guest in his or her room.
- Engage in inappropriate activity with guest.
- Engage with any social activity with guest of RMHCA unless it is pre-planned RMHCA sponsored event.
- Give legal advice or assist guests in obtaining services.
- Enter into a financial or legal agreement including loans or borrowing money with any guest.
- Impose religious or political beliefs (see below).
- Post pictures of guests on personal social media accounts (see below).
Talking to Families
Talking and visiting with guest families IS permitted. In fact, guests love conversing with our volunteers! When talking with a guest, DO NOT ask questions about why they are here, their child’s diagnosis, etc. This is an emotional subject that some guests may not feel comfortable talking about. Often times, guests will choose to tell you about their situation unprompted. If they do so, it is then appropriate for you to engage in conversation about it.
Confidentiality
Any information regarding the medical, psychological, social, or economic status of a guest or their personal information is CONFIDENTIAL and is NOT to be disclosed to any person outside the House or to other guest families.
Respect
You will encounter people of diverse backgrounds and value systems. Regardless of your own political, religious, and/or world view, you MUST demonstrate respect for all staff, volunteers, guest families and donors. This includes not imposing any religious or political views.
Religion
RMHCA is not a faith-based organization. We are an agency that welcomes people of all faiths. Individuals from many congregations and faiths volunteer at RMHCA and their ministry is demonstrated through their kindness, helpfulness and gift of their time and resources.
While speaking with a family, showing concern for them and compassion for their pain is appreciated, engaging in prayer services is not appropriate in this setting. Telling a family that you will remember them in your prayers is a welcome thing, but to facilitate a prayer service in this environment is intrusive of their privacy. We ask that you not solicit prayer requests from the families, engage in “healing efforts,” conduct sessions of prayer, or hand out religious materials to our guest families.
Families do not want to disappoint the volunteers nor decline the offer of prayer; therefore we depend upon you to respect their privacy.
Social Media
DO NOT take any pictures of a guest or guest family without the families’ permission. If a family is in your picture, you are NOT permitted to post it on your personal social media. If you are a part of a group and that group has a social media page (ie: the”Alpha Delta Pi- Samford University” page on Facebook) and would like to post pictures of your group with a guest family, permission MUST be received from the family, prior to posting.
Some families (but not all) sign a release form for RMHCA to take and post/use for marketing purposes, but not for volunteers to post on their personal pages. We want our environment in the House to be stress-free, and we don’t want to put a volunteer or a family in an awkward position. Feel free to share RMHCA social media posts of guests or guest families to your personal account– as long as it shows that the post came from RMHCA first! We love when our posts are shared with others because it helps expand the reach of our mission. Please contact the Volunteer Coordinator if you have any questions regarding social media.
These guidelines are set in place for the safety of all volunteers and guest families. Thank you for understanding.
Questions?
Contact
Zelma Mae Cable, Volunteer Coordinator
ZelmaMae.Cable@rmhca.org
205-638-7372
