- Staff & volunteers should always wear a mask, practice social distancing, and have temperature checks. Unfortunately, they are the most susceptible to contact and spread of COVID-19.
- Training volunteers in advance and multiple times is critical to ensuring a safe environment for them and attendees. At least one week in advance, provide volunteers written guidelines, host a conference call to stress safety guidelines, thoroughly review each area of service, and allow volunteers to ask questions. Have volunteers meet at the facility a few days prior, to experience the environment, and discuss processes for each service area. Consider having one set of volunteers role-play as service attendees to allow volunteers to see and understand what social distancing looks like on your campus.
- Name a safety leader for each service to ensure someone is ensuring all guidelines for social distancing and disinfecting are being followed.
- Consider utilizing staff and key leadership for the primary volunteers for the first couple of weeks. In general, they will understand the risks, be much faster to train, be more empowered to enforce guidelines, take ownership of disinfecting, and work out the kinks quicker.
- Avoid having all staff and key volunteers in the same service. Consider dividing staff and volunteers into two teams and rotate them between services or through the weekend. If a COVID-19 transmission happens in a service, especially if it is staff or a volunteer, it’s recommended to quarantine the staff and volunteers who served in that service for two weeks
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