The Benedictine Living Community is taking part in National Volunteer Week this Thursday, April 21, with their annual Volunteer Training and Learning event at the Benedictine Living Community Crookston Skilled Living side’s Library at 1:00 p.m. The event will teach current and any new volunteers the community’s policies and changes to any existing policies that have happened over the last two years.
The event will begin in the Benedictine Living Community Crookston Skilled Living side’s Library. It will have multiple presentations throughout the afternoon that will teach the new volunteers about the impact they will have on the residents, the activities they can volunteer for, and what policies and rules they will have to abide by, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Infection Control. The event will begin with an introduction by Community Administrator Judy Hulst welcoming the volunteers to the event and giving an introduction to what they’ll be learning and doing at the event. The event will continue with Activities Director Karen Swatlowski, who will present what past volunteers have done for the Community and how the volunteers will impact the residents with their services. The event will then go into the new guidelines and policies the volunteers will have to follow when they begin work, “We then have our Human Resource Director Lindsey Erdman coming in to talk to our volunteers about the new guidelines, like background checking and fingerprinting and things that we’ll have to start gathering.” Community Volunteer Coordinator Ashley Melsa explained, “Then we have our Infection Control nurse, Ashley Kraft coming in next to talk about our COVID-19 guidelines for volunteers as they come into the building about what our guidelines are and how they check-in.” The event will finish with Melsa collecting signatures and updated phone numbers and e-mails from the volunteers to prepare schedules for the volunteers for when they begin work.
The Training will teach the volunteers how to properly handle residents at the Community’s Nursing Facility as it has many vulnerable adults who have dementia and paralysis. The Volunteers will assist by helping with Community activities or hosting an event for the members and to be ready to help other staff members if they are needed. “The training is how they can handle food and how to properly deal with dementia residents who might be angry,” Melsa explained. “We talk about the different things to do in situations like wheelchair and food safety. There are annual things that we have to make sure that people get refreshers on. It’s good for everyone to get refreshers on things like CPR. So when it comes to the time that we need to use it, we know what to do.”
The Training has been an annual event for the Community before the COVID-19 pandemic and has been successful in the past, with Melsa saying that they have had up to 40 to 60 volunteers appear in the past. But due to having COVID-19 room limitations, she is asking for the volunteers who are coming to the event to RSVP with her before it so she can create the right amount of materials for everyone. “It’s going to be limited numbers as typically we have 40 to 60 people in house to do that, and with the space and how many people we want extra in house, it’s going to be a little smaller than that,” Melsa explained. “So that’s why I’m asking for people to RVSP with me so I can gather packets, and there’s lots of new information I need to get out to them. So, it’s nice to know how many I’m planning for with packets.”
The Community will also be celebrating the retirement of Summit Activities Director Kathy Hanson on Wednesday, April 27, on the 3rd floor of the Summit Dining Room at 2:30 p.m. The celebration will be open to the public. The Community will also have an Auxiliary Meeting for the new volunteers on Tuesday, May 3 at 10:00 a.m. in the Library. They will also be holding retirement parties for Community Administrator Judy Hulst, Foundations Director Sydney Hulst, and the Director of Nursing Peggy Wangen during National Nursing Home Week, the second week of May.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer or are already a volunteer for the Community, it is recommended that you pre-register your spot online and to email it to Ashley as quickly as you can due to limited spacing. “We are offering the volunteers to fill out the forms online by email, for the ones I already have just because our space is limited with COVID,” Melsa explained. “We have to limit how many people we have in the room. So many of our volunteers are already getting back to me and doing their training online.” Ashley is also willing to meet with new volunteers individually to go over the training if they are unable to make the meeting or if there is not enough space for them at the event. To contact Ashley and register your spot for the event or individual meeting, you can call 218-281-3424 and ask for Ashley, or you can e-mail her at ashley.melsa@benedictineliving.org.
