Basic Guidelines:

  1. Please do not bring more than 6 people TOTAL to the House to facilitate your activity.
  2. We kindly ask that all youth volunteers be 16 or older.
  3. When planning your activity, please provide enough materials for 10-15 children and adults to participate. Due to the fluctuating schedules of our families going to and from the hospitals, therapy, doctor’s appointments, etc. RMHC of Alabama cannot estimate or provide a head count for the number of children and adults that will be present for your activity. Please do not be discouraged if there is a small turnout for your activity.
  4. For the welfare of the families we ask that you do not visit if you are coughing, feverish, have a runny nose or have been exposed to a contagious disease.
  5. All volunteers MUST wash their hands before preparing or handling food. Gloves MUST be worn when preparing or handling food.

Arriving at the House/Dropping Off Supplies

If you need to drop off supplies before you park, please come through the driveway and ring the doorbell. This is a secure facility and staff/volunteers will have to let you in. If need be, there are carts that you are welcome to use. Once you have unloaded, please move your car to a parking space.

Parking

Please park in any available public parking space surrounding RMHCA and be prepared to feed the meters if you are here during business hours.

Talking to Families

Talking and visiting with guest families IS permitted. In fact, guests love conversing with our volunteers! When talking with a guest, please 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 political or religious views (see below).

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 guest family, showing concern for them and compassion for their pain is appreciated but engaging in prayer services is not appropriate. Telling a guest family that you will remember them in your prayers is a welcome thing, but to facilitate a prayer service is intrusive of their privacy. We ask that you not solicit prayer requests from the guest families, engage in “healing efforts,” conduct sessions of prayer, or hand out any religious materials.

Guest 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. If a guest or guest family is in your picture, you are NOT permitted to post it on to your personal social media account(s).

Volunteer groups are encouraged, however, to take photos of their group members and activities (without families pictured) to remember their service and share their experience with others.

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.

Media Consent

We love to take pictures of our volunteers in action! We may want to use pictures for special media or marketing and that may require each person in your group to sign a media consent form. We will discuss this with you, if needed.

These guidelines are set in place for the safety of all volunteers and guest families. We hope your group will want to join our mission within these guidelines. Thank you for understanding!

I’ve read the guidelines. What do I do next?

Please fill out our Activity Group Volunteer Application. Once you have submitted the application, every member in the group needs to fill out our online Background Check Form. Once those items are completed, you should contact the Program & Activities Manager to get your date set up. You MUST confirm your desired date with the Program & Activities Manager. Designating a date in your application as a preferred date does not mean it is confirmed.

Have Questions?

Contact us!