Introduction

Care Team Ministry
Replication Education Module

Background on Care Team
   Concept Development
History of Care Team Ministry
Definitions
Description and Parameters
Where Can Care Team Ministry
    Be Established?
How Do Teams Work?
Why Only 1-2 Hours?
Referrals
Calling Volunteers
Risk Management/Background
    Checks
Training
Care Team Established
Support of Volunteers
Ongoing Reporting
Cycle of Care Teams
Lessons Learned
Forming a Care Team Ministry -
    How to Get Started
Orientation for Organizations:
    Step 1, 2, 3
Media Information
Research & Resources
Conclusion and Sending Forth
Care Team Ministry Forms

Care Team Ministry
Volunteer Guidebook

How Do Team(s) Work?

Most Care Teams are made up of at least 2 and sometimes as many as 6 individual volunteers. Sometimes a husband and wife, or a mother and daughter will team up to provide support.

Each Care Team volunteer is expected to spend 1-2 hours during a designated week helping the Care Receiver. The Care Team Coordinator will assign the “Week of…” to each Care Team volunteer. The exact time and day are left to the decision of the Care Team volunteer and the Care Receiver. The Care Team volunteer will call the Care Receiver the first of “his/her” week and determine a time that is best for both.

The following week, the second volunteer on the Care Team will call the Care Receiver at the beginning of this second volunteer’s assigned week. The best 1-2 hour time period for the two to get together that week will be determined through a call between Volunteer #2 and the Care Receiver. This allows for flexibility and schedule changes for both the Care Receiver and the Volunteer—each might find a rigid schedule hard to follow, as changes invariably arise.

The third volunteer will call and help the Care Receiver the third week and the fourth volunteer, the 4th week. The schedule of the Care Team volunteers continues to function on a rotational basis in this manner.

When Care Team volunteers are asked to serve on a Team, the Care Team Coordinator will tell them the size of the Team and the frequency with which the Care Team volunteer may expect to serve. Most everyone, although busy, is usually able to find 1-2 hours once every 3 or 4 weeks to help the Care Receiver. In this way, the volunteers’ good-hearted capacity for service is not over-taxed. By requiring a time commitment only about once or twice a month, the volunteer can maintain his/her commitment to being a volunteer.

Sometimes, a Care Team is made up of only one volunteer. In that case, the Care Team volunteer may be with to the Care Receiver every week or every other week. The schedule is dependent upon the volunteer’s availability and upon the needs of the Care Receiver and is established at the outset by the Care Team Coordinator. The Care Team can always be expanded to include additional Care Team volunteers if it is deemed necessary.

The names of the other Care Team volunteers serving the specific senior are provided to all the volunteer team members. That way, if a Care Team volunteer is unable to be with the Care Receiver on his/her scheduled week, the volunteer may call the other volunteers on that Care Team and trade weeks with one of them.

Another reason to provide the “roster of names” to all the volunteers on the team for a given senior is so that they may contact each other with information or ideas for support. In some cases, the volunteer team members will “bond” with each other, as well as with the senior—and they become a small community themselves.