Agenda - 12-10-94 - Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Our third committee is VOLUNTEERS. Under the careful , dedicated, and caring supervision of Jane Rody who has worked closely with DSS program directors to gain their support, to identify needs and opportunities for volunteer services, to develop written job descriptions, to recruit, interview and screen volunteers, to place volunteers in appropriate and rewarding jobs, to provide orientation, training, and supervision and to act as liason between volunteers and staff, a small cadre of effective helpers have eased the job of social workers and enriched the lives of clients in both long-range and one-time program implementation. Community resources have been utilized. For the third year, FRIENDS will be picking up all the gifts provided for all the foster children in our community and delivering them to Social Services in Hillsborough. Marti-Pryor Cook will be providing us with a plan in February, to be phased in over three or four years, whereby Friends will take over this entire program, a program that now keeps two social workers busy for up to six weeks before Christmas, time that the Department can no longer spare. Twenty-four volunteers participated in our 1993 gift delivery effort. Their numbers illustrate the problem our Volunteer effort confronts . Participating were 10 Board members, 5 spouses of Board members and 9 others. The request to which we said "NO" was for FRIENDS to take over the large Christmas effort that serves the client families not in the foster care program. The request brought to a head our frustration and our own observation of how few DSS programs we were reaching through the volunteer effort that Disbursements and Resources were reaching on a regular basis. Each of our years we have enlisted a number of dedicated, long- range volunteers . Many of these have joined our Board and now participate in our decision-making. Recruiting and managing a volunteer program of the quality we have initiated to address other areas where volunteers are needed is beyond the ability of the FRIENDS organization. DSS made a request for funds for a Volunteer Coordinator for the 1988-89 Budget Year and continued the request for 1989-90 . It is interesting to note that of the 16 responsibilities for that coordinator noted in the request, nine of them have been incorporated in Jane Rody' s approach as Chair of the VOLUNTEER Committee. Should you agree to fund this position, under the direction of Marti Pryor-Cook we would support the person who holds the position as well as share our vast network of resources. We want to share only two programs of special merit with you that we believe cannot be established on a successful and continuing basis without such a position. The first we have been discussing