Volunteer Helpers Research Articles

Training Student Volunteers for Community Service:

This article discusses the development of a two hour training for undergraduate volunteers in youth programs in community agencies. The trainers, from a Department of Applied Psychology, conceptualized the task in the context of Miller's idea of ''giving psychology away,'' providing psychological knowledge to non-professionals who can benefit from it. The key concept given away in the training is the ''helping alliance,'' an idea from psychotherapy theory, which is modified for the specific context of volunteer helpers. Implementation of the program, preliminary evaluations, and further projects and implications are discussed.

Volunteer training: Increasing facilitative and reducing inappropriate action responding

It is likely that volunteer helpers in many community health programs have an inappropriate action-oriented or advice-giving approach to helping. This orientation promotes contradictions between aims and practice when the former has to do with prevention and reduces the effectiveness of programs. This paper evaluates a training program designed to remove the ambiguity between helping role and service delivery in volunteers about to work with adolescents. This was done by training to increase the tendency to respond in facilitative and to decrease the tendency to respond in action-oriented ways. Changes in tendencies pre- to post-training using this different from usual approach suggest that it was highly successful.

Pre‐school children with special needs and their families: increased community experiences through playgroups and mother and toddler groups

SUMMARYSouth Glamorgan Pre‐school Playgroups Association Referral Scheme was established to increase opportunities for community involvement for families of children with special needs following a two year feasibility study involving consultation with parents, the groups, and statutory and voluntary organisations. The Scheme provides information and support to families, and introductions to groups which it supports with volunteer helpers, advice, training, and equipment. By October 1984, 66 referrals had resulted in 22 places and another 21 families were receiving support.

Involving relatives in aphasia therapy

A programme of therapy for aphasia devised in Finland, Language Enrichment Therapy, was tested in an English version, particularly in respect of its co-operative use by speech therapists and the patients' relatives at home. Although a number of changes were recommended, the method was approved of by therapists and relatives. The majority of patients showed improvement, as assessed by the Western Aphasia Battery, over a period of less than three months with a regimen of one hour a week with the therapist supplemented by an average of five hours of help by a relative at home. These results should encourage the development of programmes such as Language Enrichment Therapy as an economic way of enabling speech therapists to use volunteer helpers.

Attitudes toward alcoholism in volunteer therapist aides: Do they change?

The Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire was administered pre- and postexperience to discern attitudes held by volunteer helpers, recruited from the community to help in an alcoholism rehabilitation programme. Fortyfour volunteers completed all requirements of the 6-month programme. Pre-experience attitudes appeared fairly neutral or positive towards relevant aspects of alcoholism, and two patterns emerged using principal components analysis, one centering on the predisposing influence of alcoho and the alcoholic, and the other on the social consequences of drinking. Multivariate analyses showed some significant post-programme attitudinal changes, with the older volunteers differing in some aspects from their younger counterparts.

Disaster Management at Frankfurt Airport

During peak hours at Frankfurt Airport, approximately 10,000 employees of 300 different firms, organizations and services simultaneously handle more than 10,000 passengers and accompanying people. Most of them are not familiar with the airport facilities and speak several different languages.Disaster management is the act of solving an organization problem under pressure of time. The leading role during the immediate action concerning major accidents or disasters is played by the Safety and Security Control Center of the airport operator, which alerts and controls all emergency services of the airport. Included in this organization are the fire-fighting, rescue and medical services of the airport operator, the U.S. Rhein Main Air Base and the emergency services of the City of Frankfurt. The immediate actions are exclusively based on the operation of professional task forces (without volunteer helpers). As far as possible, the emergency procedures, including personnel operations, are the same at all hours (working/holidays, day/night).The basis for the emergency operation is the “Emergency Orders” manual. The manual consists of an alarm plan in the form of alarm checklists for the different emergency services and of emergency procedures which are activated through the alarm plan.Command and control through the staff and communication system of the Safety and Security Operation Center, the on-scene Mobil Command Post and the operation centers of the airport services guarantee that the immediate response of the airport's and external task forces is fully coordinated without delay.

On the tendency for volunteer helpers to give advice.

On the tendency for volunteer helpers to give advice.

On the tendency for volunteer helpers to give advice.

On the tendency for volunteer helpers to give advice.

Volunteer scheme for dysphasia and allied problems in stroke patients.

With nearly 100 000 heavily handicapped hemiplegics in Great Britain' stroke is a major medical problem. Though most stroke patients benefit from their period of rehabilitation there inevitably comes a time when, with many problems remaining, they are discharged home to their families. The despair felt by the patient and his relatives may be overwhelming, and in most cases little support is available. The problem is particularly acute when speech is affected since there is a national shortage in some areas a total absence-of speech therapists. One source of help which has not been fully explored is the use of volunteer helpers working within a responsible organization and co operating with doctors, speech therapists, and other professional workers. Such a project has been sponsored by the Chest and Heart Association and financed by the Clarkson Foundation. This report describes the pilot scheme and records some observations made after 16 months' work in two areas, the Chilterns and Oxford city.

Live Animal Study in the Beginning Zoology Course

For several years the observation of live animals has been a regular part of the laboratory procedure of our introductory zoology course. We have continued the practice these many years because it has been successful in student interest and achievement. Even though the students may many times have seen such common animals as the frog, the earthworm, or the grasshopper, most of them have never before taken time to observe their activities at close range. The students respond with much enthusiasm to this type of laboratory work, ask many questions, and give every indication that they are taking the work seriously and getting much out of the study. With adaptations, this type of study lends itself to both high school and college levels. Live study of animals has many values to recommend it. It has helped to rescue the course from mere carcass study and to restore the course to its rightful place as a study of life. Live study furthermore lends variety to the laboratory schedule of work, gives the students a chance to see how the structures operate which they have just studied in the preserved specimens, corrects abnormal impressions of the animals such as faded colors and color patterns, shriveled skins, twisted or flattened bodies, abnormal positions of limbs, and other distortions. Live animals also demonstrate their natural movements and activities, and, perhaps, also their voices. There is also an opportunity to impress respect, understanding, and consideration for animals. Pithed or anesthetized animals can also be used to demonstrate the actions of internal organs; e. g., heart beat, blood flow, lung action, peristalsis, muscle contraction, and other internal activities. Making use of the live animal supply, one can use freshly killed animals to demonstrate the natural color, normal position, distensibility (e. g., lungs) of internal organs, to offset the abnormal impressions obtained from the decolorized, and often displaced, organs of the preserved specimens. The live study follows the dissection or other morphological study of the organism in order that the student may first become familiar with the structures and their functions. Live specimens of the animals to be studied in the course are collected or purchased just before their use in the laboratory if they are available at that time. They are in best condition and will show most normal activity when they are fresh from their native habitat. If they cannot conveniently be obtained at the time they are to be studied, they are collected when available in the fall or spring and maintained in the laboratory until needed. If they must be maintained in the laboratory for some time before use, they must be kept in good condition with proper food, regular feeding, water, light, space to exercise, and in as natural surroundings as possible. Interested members of the class may be enlisted to help collect the animals and maintain them in the laboratory and may thus see the natural habitats of the animals, methods of collection, and activities of the animals in the field. Usually these volunteer helpers become so enthusiastic and interested in the field work that their enthusiasm is passed on to the class when the animals are studied. In all of these studies, it is important to keep the animals calm and unexcited so as to get somewhat normal responses from them. This is especially important in the live study of vertebrates and the higher invertebrates. To this end, the animals should be handled as little as possible. If handled, they should be handled gently and slowly. It is important to avoid quick, nervous movements of one's body and hands in or near the containers; slow movements do not excite them. Loud noises of all kinds should also be avoided. This small bit of technique in handling animals should be called to the attention of the students at the beginning of the study. Control of the class often becomes more difficult during live study exercises. The stu-

Elements of a rural rheumatic fever program.

† The community rheumatic fever program here described has been administered by a county department of health under the auspices of a state crippled children service, with funds coming from both county and state. Local medical, laboratory, clinic, and hospital facilities are utilized. The plan has been to encompass all aspects of the patient's illness, to enlist the cooperation and continue the education of the patient's family as to his illness, to keep adequate records, and to formulate policies that would insure the cooperation of the physicians and of the interested official and voluntary organizations. Volunteer helpers made it possible to maintain a large anteroom as a combined reception, dressing, and recreation area, which made it much easier for families with several children. Volunteers also served in clerical capacities, provided necessary transportation, and in some instances donated professional services. The program resulted in more accurate diagnoses, more systematic treatment, and a striking reduction in the incidence of active rheumatic fever in the program's patient population.

Are we doing enough to meet the Flood Menace?

Abstract The tragic destruction, heroic rescue work and the magnificent response to the appeal for help had such a wide human interest appeal that they naturally dominated the published accounts of the disastrous floods at the end of February, 1955. This is more than understandable; but there still remains the difficult flood mitigation problem in those rivers and many others in Australia, and a successful solution will be found from a prosaic, cold-blooded examination and attack on the problem, rather than depending upon the warm-hearted sympathy of the public to provide the financial and physical resources needed to restore damaged homes and restock devastated farmlands. Money granted by governments and raised from public subscription, not to mention the magnificent response to the call for volunteer helpers to assist in the labour of restoration, hag done much to relieve some of the hardship suffered; but for many the loss will never be recouped, whilst for the community at large the devastation of pro...

Preparation of Fine Chemicals

THE Advisory Research Council of the Chemical Society, in collaboration with the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers, is putting into operation a scheme for organizing the preparation of fine chemicals in Great Britain by part-time volunteer workers in the laboratories of universities, technical colleges, and other institutions. It is essential to the scheme thai? compounds so prepared must be required for work of national importance and he not available commercially, and that the manufacturers of fine chemicals are themselves unable, or do not find it convenient, to meet the demands. It is intended that preparations should be carried out on a cost-price basls which would include charges for materials, pis, electricity, etc., but not for the workers' services. No profits of any kind will be permitted. Those who wish their names to be added to the list of volunteer helpers in connexion with this scheme should communicate with the General Secretary, Chemical Society, Piccadilly, London, W.I, to whom mquirje§ for fine chemicals, falling within the scope of the scheme may also be made.