Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Down

Author Topic: ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?  (Read 18956 times)

AC2Q

  • Member
  • Posts: 394
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« on: February 19, 2008, 10:35:19 AM »

Has this been finalized yet?
If so, how were background checks addressed?
Logged

KG4RUL

  • Posts: 3781
    • HomeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2008, 10:56:47 AM »

The current Statement of Understanding (SOU) with the American Red Cross (ARC) became effective on September 17, 2002 and was set to terminate on September 16, 2007. So I guess that we do not have any effective SOU in place at this time?
Logged

AJ4DW

  • Member
  • Posts: 148
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2008, 09:35:01 AM »

Correct, no MOU/SOU withe ARC at this time.
Logged

AC2Q

  • Member
  • Posts: 394
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2008, 11:06:52 AM »

So, How to we interface with ARC if needed then??
Logged

AJ4DW

  • Member
  • Posts: 148
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2008, 11:54:07 AM »

Lack of an MOU does not preclude cooperation between hams and the ARC (specifically, between the ARRL Emergency Coordinators and the ARC). Just means that the Red Cross patches need to come off the jackets/vests and we're not Red Cross Volunteers anymore. Check with your EC.
Logged

KG4RUL

  • Posts: 3781
    • HomeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2008, 12:18:44 PM »

As far as I knew, we never were Red Cross volunteers.  We were a cooperating agency and fully kept our identities.
Logged

AC2Q

  • Member
  • Posts: 394
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2008, 07:43:12 AM »

ABSOLUTELY NOT VOLUNTEERS, No background checks for me!!
Logged

KC5SAS

  • Member
  • Posts: 99
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2008, 01:13:34 PM »

QUOTE-As far as I knew, we never were Red Cross volunteers. We were a cooperating agency and fully kept our identities. -UNQUOTE

Exactily.  When shelters open here and I am deployeed it is as a RACES member. I am covered under the insurance and policies of he OEP I serve.  I make it clear that I'm not a Red Cross volunteer but am there to assist them as a seperate agency.  No different than the police officer assigned to provide security or the firefighter/EMT assigned to provide EMS aid if needed.

Steve
RACES Officer
Iberville Parish, La
Logged

K1CJS

  • Member
  • Posts: 6293
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2008, 08:45:42 AM »

Exactly right.  If you are a Red Cross volunteer AND a ham radio volunteer--the only place where one might see a problem if no MOU--then you have to decide which agency you will work under, the city/town RACES agency or the Red Cross.  That is because that is the main point of what the MOU covered.
Logged

W2KYM

  • Member
  • Posts: 23
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2008, 10:32:29 AM »

According to this...
http://www.emcommforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=357

You can work in a Red Cross shelter for up to 7 days without getting the background check.

I hear the sticky point with the MOU is the credit check (which Red Cross does not do).
Logged

KG4RUL

  • Posts: 3781
    • HomeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2008, 01:50:15 PM »

I find this "7 day" window to be VERY nebulous.  Take the case of a shelter set up in an elementary school.  The school's food service staff is paid by the ARC to cook and run the food service aspects of the shelter.  Taking this rule literally, breakfast on the eighth day may never happen?  OR Is the food service provided by a contractor and therefore not under the ARC umbrella?  AND If that is the case, why would ARES volunteers who are in a similar but, even less closely tied,  relationship with the ARC, also not exempt from this requirement?

My guess is that when we show up to set up our equipment no one is going to have us escorted out.  If we do our job, providing communications by whatever means, our efforts will be utilized and appreciated.

Dennis Raymond Zabawa - KG4RUL
ARRL SC Section, Public Information Coordinator
Berkeley County SC ARES/RACES, Information Officer
Trident Amateur Radio Club(TARC), Charleston, SC
Community Emergency Response Team, Charleston, SC - Team C9B - Instructor
W4VEC Volunteer Examiner
Logged

KE4SKY

  • Member
  • Posts: 1045
    • homeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2008, 11:14:27 AM »

Red Cross cut @ 1/3 of their HQ workforce (1,000) people, including many in their Federal Response
and Disaster Services offices last week.

FEMA to take over mass care role formerly held by Red
Cross

By Katherine McIntire Peters

March 7, 2008

Emergency management professionals learned many
lessons from the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina
in 2005, among them the need for a more coherent
approach to providing mass care. The storm destroyed
or rendered uninhabitable more than 300,000 homes,
sending nearly a million people in search of shelter.

As a result of that unprecedented experience, the
American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency agreed last year that FEMA should
have responsibility for coordinating mass care, and
not the Red Cross, as had been the case. That's
because FEMA could direct federal resources to meet
mass care needs, while the private Red Cross could not
-- a factor that added to the confusion in the
aftermath of Katrina.

That agreement was codified earlier this year in the
National Response Framework, the emergency response
blueprint FEMA published in January with input from
other federal agencies and state, local and private
entities involved in disaster management.

A recent report by the Government Accountability
Office raises concerns about the new arrangement,
however. While GAO supports FEMA's role as the primary
agency for providing mass care, it questions whether
it has the staff and resources to do so adequately.
Additionally, neither FEMA nor the Red Cross nor other
volunteer organizations are sufficiently prepared to
support the elderly or people with disabilities during
a disaster, auditors found.

While the role of the Red Cross will remain largely
the same as in the past, it no longer will be
responsible for reporting data on all shelters,
something it had been required to do. Now, the Red
Cross will report only on its own shelters and states
will be responsible for reporting on all other
shelters. FEMA will be responsible for compiling the
data on all shelters into a centralized database,
still under development.

Some state officials told GAO they did not think they
would be able to provide complete information about
unplanned shelters that may emerge in a disaster, in
part because those often are operated by volunteer
organizations with no disaster response experience.
GAO also found that FEMA has only one liaison working
in each region to coordinate issues between volunteer
organizations and FEMA.

Under the National Response Framework, the National
Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, an
umbrella organization for 49 volunteer agencies, is
supposed to coordinate with FEMA. But that group has
only two employees, GAO found, noting the staff had
doubled since Katrina.

Marko Bourne, director of policy and program analysis
at FEMA, said in a recent interview that the agency
has been working with states to identify gaps in
planning and preparedness by systematically analyzing
issues across 17 major categories, including holes in
mass care planning. FEMA began the process with
hurricane-prone states last year and will roll out the
gap analysis program nationwide this year, Bourne
said.

"It was the first time we went to the states and sat
down and said 'Look, say there's going to be X event,
in this case a hurricane, what is your local capacity
to evacuate every major city on your coastline? Where
would you put them? How are you going to feed them?
What are you going to do with debris? What's your
shelter plan? What are you doing? And then, let's take
a look at those things that we collectively agree are
the gaps, and let's see how we can fill them,'" Bourne
said.

"The idea is it's a collaborative process between
ourselves and the states and major jurisdictions," he
said.

GAO acknowledged that FEMA has made progress with the
gap analysis program, but said the agency had to do
more, especially to address the needs of the disabled.
FEMA "has generally not coordinated with disability
experts as required by the [2006 Post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act]." GAO specifically
chastised FEMA for not coordinating efforts with the
National Council on Disability, a federal agency that
addresses disability issues. Such coordination is
required by the law.

"It's a real challenge," said Martin Gould, director
of research and technology at the council. "We're
doing the best we can to address the Post-Katrina Act
mandate." He pointed out that the agency needs to have
direct involvement in FEMA planning. On Wednesday,
March 5, the council received an "11th hour"
invitation to attend a meeting with FEMA
representatives the following Monday to discuss
special needs shelters, Gould said, adding that the
council welcomes the opportunity.
Logged

K2GW

  • Member
  • Posts: 538
    • homeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2008, 07:29:25 AM »

Two points.  Yes, we are serving as ARES or RACES volunteers when supporting a Red Cross operation and thus we do not have to go through the Red Cross background check procedure PROVIDED that our agency (ARES or RACES) has a background check policy that is equivalent to theirs AND is approved by the Red Cross in advance.  

ARES under ARRL has no such national background check procedure nor funds to pay for one so that's currently out and probably holding up the MOU/SOU.

Individual OEM's providing folks under "RACES" (highly dubious as FCC suspension of the Amateur Radio Service and imposition of the RACES rules has never occurred since they were established in 1952) have differing policies across the country, so that while your Podunk OEM background check policy might be approved in advance by the Podunk Chapter of the Red Cross, it's unlikely to have been approved by a Red Cross chapter in another state, so responding to a major disaster there is also dubious.  Thus in both cases it's best for a ham to have the Red Cross background check completed which will work anywhere.

As for FEMA taking over the Mass Care function, we're only talking about the compilation and supervision of the ESF function at the regional FEMA HQ's, etc.  There's no reason to believe that the Red Cross will stop running the bulk of the actual shelters in the field where any hams would actually show up.  Thus the change has little bearing on this from our point of view.

Bottom line.  Completing the benign Red Cross background check (I've done so myself) is simple, painless, pretty risk free, is paid for by the Red Cross, and will get you in door of a shelter across the country.  Everything else is "maybe".

73

Gary, K2GW
SNJ SEC
Logged

AJ4DW

  • Member
  • Posts: 148
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2008, 08:51:50 AM »

Many questions arise from the ARC's refusal to modify their agreement with the background-check vendor. A background check may be required by Congress, but the ARC background check goes into areas that are not required (such as "lifestyles" and financial information). While the ARC may not use the latter two aspects of the check itself, the vendor does, and he is specifically NOT prohibited from selling that information or using it for other customers.

This brings up the question as to why the ARC decided to use this vendor and refuses to limit what the vendor collects to the required background information (a criminal check, basically)...

Logically, any organization will contract with a vendor who can do the job at the lowest price. This vendor is not restricted from selling your information to anyone (including advertisers) which would offset a lower price (you might even ask if the ARC is being paid to allow this information to be collected).

This is the second time I've heard of this background check as "benign". By benign I assume that the writer is stating that it did not hurt him, there were no needles used or blood drawn. However, I wouldn't classify the selling of my (very) personal information as "benign". I get plenty of advertisements in my e-mail and snail-mail already, as well as by phone (the "do not call" registry is nowhere near 100%) thank you, and I'd prefer my callers not to know what my income is and whether I drive a foreign car or ride a motorcycle, how old I am, how many children I have, etc. I prefer to preserve my right to privacy and will undergo a security check if needed (as I have in the past, I have served as an officer with security clearance in the military and in the Highway Patrol), but I will limit it to what is needed... not what someone else wants to profit from.

I'd like to know that any information is secure and kept confidential. In other words, I'd prefer to be "secure in my person"... there's an old document somewhere in Washington DC about that.... if it hasn't been sold yet.
Logged

K2GW

  • Member
  • Posts: 538
    • homeURL
ARC/ARRL MOU UPDATE?
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2008, 12:20:57 PM »

>>the ARC background check goes into areas that are not required (such as "lifestyles" and financial information).

No it doesn't.

One more time, it does not include those two checks for us hams.  All the ARC pays for and all the vendor runs is a simple criminal background check and SSN verification.  Period.  End of story.

You can actually see what specific checks were run on you on the report that you personally get.  The ARC cannot see that report; it just gets an e-mail stating that you have passed; it doesn't get anything if you fail.

The Mode of Living checks and Financial information checks cost the ARC additional money and are thus are ONLY run for those ARC volunteers who are involved with child care and dispersing funds and for all of the ARC professional staff.  I think we all can understand the need for that.

You do sign a generic disclaimer allowing for all of them (even though they aren't run on you), so the Red Cross doesn't have to track which volunteers signed what disclaimer if their duties subsequently evolve to include handling funds (called "case work") or child care during a disaster.  But no one is going to run those checks without getting paid to run them and the Red Cross isn't wasting its money on running them for hams.

I stand by the term "benign."  There is more information about you available on www.qrz.com than submitted or gathered for the background check run on Hams assigned to the Red Cross.

73

Gary Wilson, K2GW
ARRL SNJ SEC
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Up