Orange County
Employee Disaster Volunteer Program
Orange County, Fla.
Orange County, Fla. is located in central Florida, the meeting point of several major highways, between the east and west coasts. It has been designated as a host county in the event of coastal evacuations. This “host county” designation requires Orange County to potentially shelter in excess of one million evacuees. This places a large burden on the availability of shelter spaces and qualified shelter management personnel. With this in mind, Orange County sought to augment the number of Red Cross trained shelter managers to be able to manage the 200-plus potential shelters within the county.

The Orange County Employee Disaster Volunteer Program is a training program for shelter managers and is taught by the Red Cross to county employees within county facilities during county business hours. Upon completion of the 16-hour training course, employees are certified as Red Cross shelter managers. In the event of a disaster, the county emergency operations center will activate the required number of shelter management personnel (depending on the scope of the disaster) in concert with the local Red Cross.

Volunteers in the program also include contingency personnel who are assigned to the County Emergency Operations Center and the Citizens Information Center. Both centers require trained personnel for proper operation of the county’s response process. This program has enhanced participation considerably, which has increased provision of critical services during a disaster.

The final element of this program, which has ensured its success, was the implementation of the disaster pay plan policy by the Board of County Commissioners, which compensates county employees in the event of disasters. Because this policy precedes a disaster’s occurring, disaster pay, ($12 for employees with no formal training and $20 for trained personnel) is refundable by FEMA.

Crisis Response in
the Schools:
An Intergovernmental Partnership
Montgomery County, Md.
In a partnership between Montgomery County’s crisis center and large public school system, more than 500 student service personnel were trained to provide a crisis mental health response following a traumatic event in the schools. In the event of a large scale incident, two “Core Crisis Teams,” comprised of approximately 30 student service workers would respond.

The training included lectures about crisis response, models, experiential opportunities to practice learned skills and activities to facilitate adaptation of the model to their student populations.

The need for this program was identified during the spring of 1999 (soon after the shootings at Columbine High School). Three levels of crisis were defined:

• Level 1— school based crisis, such as an out-of-control student or a suicidal threat
• Level 2 — crisis affecting a single school, such as the death of a student or teacher, and
• Level 3 — traumatic crisis, often involving more than one school requiring a coordinated, broad response by a county wide crisis response team.

The Department of Health and Human Services Crisis Center and the Montgomery Public Schools Student Services joined to plan and outline objectives to successfully implement training to at least 150 personnel. The training was accomplished less than one year after the need was identified and because of the unique and successful partnering of two departments within Montgomery County’s government, the training occurred without incurring expenditures beyond the fiscal year’s budgeted funds for training.

(Hats off to ... was compiled by Christina Crayton, research assistant, and features 2001 NACo Achievement Award winners. For more information, call (202) 942-4285.)