Volunteers and Students

CommuniCare’s Volunteer Program Responds to COVID-19

Volunteers serve many important roles at CommuniCare that enable us to meet our mission – serving patients/clients and their families. As you know, volunteers have been at the heart of what we do since 1972. In response to COVID-19, CommuniCare has led the way in implementing safety measures in order to keep our employees, volunteers, and patients safe, and to minimize potential spread of COVID-19.

To achieve our top priority – safety for all – the volunteer program is currently:

• Working with program managers to transition as many existing volunteer positions as possible into remote/virtual volunteer roles.
• Working to create new remote/virtual volunteer positions in response to some new challenges we face as a healthcare organization – challenges that didn’t exist before COVID-19.
• In the long term, we will continue using guidelines from State and Local Health Officials, the CDC, and CAL/OSHA to create infrastructure for in-person volunteers to return to CommuniCare clinics and satellite locations, when we can safely do so.

We are taking the time to do it right. We want to be able to:

• Continue to offer volunteers opportunities that will provide meaningful experiences – so volunteers can explore their interests and use their education, skills and abilities to have a positive impact on the community
• Ensure that the opportunities provide potential for volunteers to achieve personal and/or professional growth and learning
• Implement proper infrastructure for on-site volunteers that will not add to the duties of clinic staff or providers, or otherwise adversely affect patient experience.
• Continue to provide high-quality healthcare services to our patients – which is our number one priority (after safety!)

We continue to accept new volunteer applications, and we are happy to hear from you. Please let us know what questions you have volunteer@communicarehc.org. We will get through this challenging time together!