Michigan 4-H Volunteer Webinar Series: Managing Risk For Volunteers

May 29, 2024

Managing Risk For Volunteers: Our guiding principles state that youth are physically and emotionally safe; one step in this process is reviewing the media and medical authorization forms for the members engaged in your club. Watch this video to learn how to access, review, and keep this information safe while serving as a 4-H Volunteer.

Video Transcript

All right. I would like to welcome everyone to today's Michigan four H volunteer webinar for the series we've been doing in 2024. Our topic today is managing risks with health and media and medical forms. I have two wonderful co presenters with me today who will be doing the content presentation. I'll give them a quick chance to do their introductions first, Dorothy, do you want to start. Sure. My name is Dorothy M. I am the policy and risk management educator and we'll be talking about our topic today and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Jennifer. And I'm Jennifer Michael. I'm the volunteer specialist with Michigan State University Extension, and I'm here to help field any questions that may arise during today's webinar. Thank you for joining us. So thank you everyone for joining. As a reminder, I'm Christine Heavey. I'm an extension educator based in Clinton County, and I work on how we train volunteers across the state of Michigan. So As we go through today, MSU extension believes fully in the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We know that human differences enrich our lives, work, and community. We embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and are committed to providing programs to all segments of our community. It's also important to understand the longstanding history and legacy of colonialism that has brought us all to reside on the land and seek to understand our place within that history and the land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in the process. Many of you are aware that this is part of our volunteer learning series that we have been doing over the last year and a half and we have had a variety of different topics come across, and we've recorded all of those topics and you can find recordings for all of those topics on our volunteer Webinar Series learning page. We will have at least four new topics this fall that those dates and topics will be released in mid July with registration and they will all be found on our volunteer learning Webinar Series page. If you've registered for a past Webinar, you will get a direct e mail about them also and you will get a follow up e mail after today's webinar also with that information. So I FH, we have the great opportunity to work with youth in many non formal settings. These places can provide you a place to belong, matter, explore their personal sparks. The relationships that you have with each of you as four H volunteers helps them build life skills, engagement, belonging, and make a four H program impactful. To ensure the success of that, we have to think about that risk management topic and how we make sure we keep them safe through our programs by trying to find ways to reduce the risk that they have. Today's topic is really focused on that. It is really important to helping you thrive because we want to have safe environments where they can find that spark, have that place to belong, build those relationships, and have that engagement piece. When we talk about sparks, sparks are those internal strengths that someone has that they're good at, useful and provide a purpose in life. In some cases, this is where youth get to really showcase what they're great at. It's that helps them. It's their chance to shine. It helps youth be really prepared and grow. FH is all about helping you find that spark and in your role as a leader, you want to find that spark, but you also have to marry that with keeping a mindset on the risk management pieces. So today, our focus of our webinar as Christine has shared is to share information with you, our volunteers on managing risks with FH programs and activities by utilizing health, media, and medical forms. We know that our FH programs are helping our children explore and engage and we want to help them do that in the safest way possible. We are not risk adverse, and anything that we do in life is going to have some level of risk, but we want to ensure that it's as safe as possible and that we're ready for any situation that might arise. And so the first question is, whose job is risk management? I have it as part of my title. But whose job in four H is risk management? Well, the answer is it's all of our jobs. Our four H staff are responsible for sharing our policies, our procedures, and best practices around safety, and you are volunteers because you work directly with you, ensure that these practices, policies, and procedures are followed during all of the four H club meetings, events and programs that you have, and you ensure that everyone is safe as possible while having fun and learning through our four H program. And so these are some of the forms that are available to you. And I was just going to talk about how you might get those. So our four H staff people are able to download three different types of documents that will be helpful for you as a four H volunteer when you're working with youth and adults. And so the first one is our help forms. So when four H participants enroll in four H online, parents provide health information, and those documents can be downloaded by the four H staff person in your county offices and provided to you. Another document that they can download from four H online is the media consent report. So you can get a report of who has signed the media consent and who has not signed the media consent. So that provides you with the information of who is giving permission to have their images, their voice, the recordings to be shared. Or who has not? And then the last piece that you can get access to is our volunteer media medical code of conduct and emergency contact reports for volunteers. So that is a form a document that would be available through through volunteer Central, and it would provide you with information on all of the volunteers engaged with the program. So if you're doing a program and you have multiple volunteers, it's good to know that those are available. And what is the best way to handle this information. We know that health media medical release information is confidential. It should be kept private. There is information on there that is sensitive in nature. They have medical diagnoses perhaps that are being shared or histories that are being shared. We want to make sure that we maintain those in a secure space for storage. This information can be shared with you as a volunteer, and we encourage staff to consider putting it in a red portfolio, so it stands out to you or a red three ring binder. We encourage our staff to include a cover letter, which I'll show you shortly that explains the confidential nature of this information and how it should be used. And then when you're done using it, if you're saying your four H club only needs nine months out of the year. When you're done with that information, I would encourage you to think about returning it to the office to the staff person so it can be shredded and properly disposed of in a safe manner. The information that we would share with you should only be used and shared when absolutely necessary. So if you have fellow goal level volunteers that are helping you manage a club or manage a program, a camp, you would share this information with them so that they were aware, but you would not be sharing it with the general group of the general population of your club or your event or anybody who's not a goal level volunteer. This is a copy of the letter that we encourage staff to use. So you can see in this letter, it talks about the fact that this information is being shared with you so that you can be prepared for any situation that might arise. It talks about some of the things that you might want to look for in health information. So there might be allergies, there may be health problems or illnesses that may affect a participant. They may have special needs that may require accommodations, and then again, media releases, so you want to look for some that are not signed. You want to make sure that again, you're only sharing that with your fellow goal level volunteers and that it really is designed to be shared only to help each of the members have a successful engagement in the program. It again, talks about how the information should be stored. We encourage you to keep it with your club supply so that it's readily available for you and that you have it wherever you may go. And then we would also encourage the inclusion of an injury, property damage report form, which we will be talking about shortly as well to record any incidents that may happen. So this is an example. Well, what the letter might look like if your staff person were to share information with you. So this is the information that we collect in for H online on medical information and treatment authorization. On the right, you can see exactly what it might look like in our system, and it is important to know that medical information is not required to be shared by parents and volun parents and guardians, so they may or may not share this That information includes the participants, their birthday, parent contacts, and physicians contact information. So they may perhaps not share the physician's contact information if they choose to not do that. That's an example of something that they may not want to share. The last three documents or parts of this sections of this document are required. So they are required to disclose any illnesses, medical problems, allergies, and the date of the last tetanashot that the individual receives. They are required to share with us if they have health insurance share that information. If they don't, then there's a process using an NA to indicate that they don't have coverage. And then they are required to also let us know if they authorize medical treatment as well. So those are all required portions of this document, which can be shared with you. And so part of that. Using that document, if you happen to notice that there are children that have a medical conditions. For example, they have a severe allergy that might require the use of an EpiPen. That may indicate to you that you might want to explore the medication administration policy and procedures that was newly released with Michigan four H. It will be implemented this coming June 1. It was piloted since last year, and this policy is in place for any overnight programs that we have, or daytime programs that might require a medication to be administered if a parent is not able to attend the program or the club meeting. So in most cases, unless you are coordinating an overnight event, this would not be something that you would necessarily need to have readily collect, but you may have instances, again, with a quick relief medication, perhaps that you would need to collect this information. If youth are 12 and older, they are able to self administer the quick relief medications, and so that's listed in the policy as well. We also recently had a release of our policy for four H first aid kits. And so counties are encouraged to have first aid kits available at all functions. It is recommended that clubs have kits on hand during their meetings and we have a link. It's in the chat as well. For you to access this for what resources should be included in first aid kits and what resources should not. So as you look at the right hand slide of the slide, you will notice that there are many resources list items listed. You'll notice that there are no over the counter medications or prescription medications listed here as we would need a medication administration form in order to administer those. The things that are listed here are items that we can go ahead and use without collection of that form. So the media release information that we collect in four H online is listed here. And this is information that we collect to be able to know if we can utilize audio images, film or print images of an individual and list how we might want to use those images. Again, we need to have a signature from a parent in order to go ahead and utilize those media. Types of media. So why is it important to know who signed a media release? We cannot use audio video film or print images. We cannot actually even take them of individuals at a FH program or activity without a media release. And this includes social media posts. So if you are or somebody in the club is taking photos of an individual and we're posting on our social media club website or a general social media website. We cannot do that if we do have not collected a media release for that individual. Staff and volunteers are responsible for knowing if anyone in the group has an enrollment with a release not signed. So the easiest way to monitor this is to pull the report and then search it for the individuals who have not signed it. There are many reasons that parents and guardians choose not to sign these releases, and some of them include preference. They their family preference is to not include their children's images or release their children's images. Some of them are related to safety, and we may have individuals who are part of the foster care system is legally prohibited that their images can be shared or there could be custody issues where somebody has had their custody rights terminated and it would be unsafe for that individual's images to be shared. Hose are just a few of the reasons that people have chosen to not sign the media releases. But what strategies might you use or have you used to ensure that we abide by parent guardian wishes without singling out participants. If you have strategies that you used in your groups in your clubs and your programs, please put those in the chat. I'll give you a couple of minutes to do so of how you've been able to follow this policy without singling out a child. Dorothy, while we're waiting for those responses to come in, we do have one question if you could just clarify this for our viewers today. Is the report available online with our rosters in four H online? That is a great question, and I was just speaking with Jennifer about it. I believe when Four each online first came out when we had the first version of Fach online, we had some limited ability to have volunteer see medical information. Now there is no medical information in the roster in F each online that volunteers can access, which is why we're asking you all as volunteers to communicate with your four H staff person and let them know that you would like this information. And they should be able to provide that easily for you. The way that we have done that in the past is sometimes we have given wrist bands or we have put that is a specific color. So we know if someone with a green wrist band for instance, they're not. We can't take their picture. I know that's one way we manage it at the state tournament for shooting sports as we use wristbands. Another strategy that has been suggested is making a mark on a name tag. Another suggestion is when taking pictures of groups find angles that don't include the youth that don't have the authorization. So that's another great strategy. We do have another comment here as well, the way for each online enrollment happens is people have options whether or not they choose to enroll prior to or after a for each meeting. As a leader, she points out that she has no way to monitor that in real time. So when they have a meeting, and in her case, she has a large club with about 100 members. She's questioning, how would I possibly know if everyone there assigned a media release in order to do social media posts. She's thinking that that may be difficult to enforce or monitor. So she is questioning. How about an announcement at the beginning of the venter meeting that anyone that has an issue with being used in social media posts need to bring that to the club members attention. So Dorothy, I don't know if you want to suggest some strategies to go with that. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I would say, understanding that your enrollment period is probably a long enrollment period. That's a great strategy to announce that, to make sure that the parents and or the members, if they're aware if there's not immediately signed, that they can bring that to your attention if they're a new member. Otherwise, trying to have your bulk of your enrollments and then communicating regularly with your four H staff person if there's any new participants attending so that they can give you updates, and also monitoring on your end when you have new participants. So if you have three more kids, join making sure that you're following up with your staff person to see if those new individuals have media releases signed or or not. I appreciate the fact that it'll be challenging with that. Ultimately, there's no other way to do that. There is a request to the creators of four H online asking that we are able to provide volunteers with viewing access for medical information and media information, but it has not happened yet, but know that that is a request that is that has been submitted. Yeah. And a couple other great ideas for those that may not have signed a media release form, or if you're unsure, you could take pictures of just people's hands when they're working on craft projects. That way, you can still show the engagement that you have in your club, but you're not necessarily showing any identifiable faces in that. Another strategy that has been used is that those that haven't signed those media releases. Sometimes we have asked them if they can just as we're taking group pictures to position themselves to stand behind someone so that they can't see the photographer that typically means if they can't see us, we can't see them. So when we take that picture, it alleviates that individual from being shown in that photo. So those are just a few strategy. And I think the last strategy that Jennifer shared is really important, especially with teenagers who may feel they have to a photo or aren't they that they have to do so. So it's great strategy. Okay. So this is what the health information would look like that you would receive from the four H staff person. They would if you ask requested this information to be shared with you, you're going to receive information about the member, their name, their birthday, their county, their emergency contact information and guardian name. And information. You would receive information about allergies, any medical conditions that they may have, vaccinations, health insurance, their history, if there's specific remarks that they want to share with you, and then you would also see a youth medical release, which this information is very helpful when if we have a child who needs to seek medical care because of an incident that may have occurred at a four H meeting, this is information that's super helpful for the medical providers to have for the individuals. This is what the information on volunteers would look like if you requested this. So you would receive volunteer, media, medical, code of conduct, and emergency contact information for each of the volunteers engaged with your club program or event that you have. How do we use medical information? Again, you would want to review the information that you are provided. You're going to want to look for health problems or illnesses that you should be aware of that may arise during a four H experience. An example that we have here is a four H member who has seizures. When I years and years ago, when I was a new four H staff person in a county, I had a large shooting sports program, and we had a young man who was part of the shooting sports program. He had enrolled at that time, we had enrollment forms only, and we had two three inch three ring binders in our offices in our office that had all of our four H members information alphabetized by by the last name. His information was in those three ring binders. He was at a shooting sports meeting. It was unique in the fact that his mother did not stay at that meeting with him. She went and did some errands and typically she stayed. At that meeting he was on the line, I think in archery and that was what he was engaging with. He all of a sudden fell to the ground and experienced a seizure. Fortunately, the administrative leader for that club was also an EMT and knew exactly what to do and took care of the situation, and everything went okay. The young man was fine. Parent came back and said, Oh, yes, he has experienced seizures. He has a medical condition that causes that, and everything turned out fine. The next day, this was all reported to me because this was, of course, after hours when our office was closed. I realized that his health information did absolutely no good whatsoever, sitting in our office, and that the volunteers should have been informed of this and could have been informed of this. So from that point forward, I always shared medical information with my volunteers. And that's really an example from years ago, but still relevant today, and one of the reasons that it is important for you to have this information. So you should just look through the information, look to see if there's any conditions that you would want to be aware of, and then need to have conversations about how you might handle that or support that young person. Another example would be allergies. And so does the individual have food allergies? And if so, do you have club meetings where you or programs where you have food or snacks at those meetings? And are there particular food items that you would need to watch out for and make sure that they are not at those meetings in order to protect that individual. Another example would be environmental or be allergies. So if that's the case, does the young person have the fast acting or rapid release medications that they carry on their person? Are they less than 12 years of age? If so, is their parent going to be with them at all times, or do we need to assign a volunteer to walk to shadow that individual to make sure that they can access the fast relief? Rapid release medications that should they need them. Again, we want to keep all of these documents secure. We are not governed under HIPAA violations with four H, but we do have an expectation of confidentiality, and so we would want to only share our information with approved good level volunteers who must know this information and make sure that we handle it appropriately. So how is the health insurance and medical treatment authorization form used? If a parent is present during a for each event and emergency services are not needed, so an EM 911 doesn't need to be called, The parent can take the participant to a medical provider if they choose to. If a parent is not present and it is warranted, we would call emergency services. We would then notify the parent or guardian of the incident and inform them that emergency services are taking care of the situation. If it's possible, you would provide the first responders or the emergency care facility with a copy of the health insurance information and medical treatment authorization. That will help speed up the process and make things much simpler for the family and the medical facility as well. After the emergency has been taken care of or the incident has been taken care of, then you would contact the county for each staff person as soon as possible to notify them of the situation. This is our process for handling health incidents, and next, we have a report form that we would use time that we have an incident that happens that results in an injury or property damage. We would ask you to complete this help form that's located here on the right. We asked that this information be filled out as completely as possible, as neatly as possible so that we can read it because it's handwritten. And we asked that that be done within 24 hours of the incident and provided to the four staff person for processing. This helps us understand the situations and make sure that we can appropriately manage them. And with that, that is the end of our presentation.