During this COVID-19 pandemic, our island community needs you as a health care professional, those of you involved in mental health care and spiritual care, and those with administrative skills.

Join us!! : All you need to do is send us an email to:  MRCmembership@vashonbeprepared.org.  Include your background and your contact information.    Jeff & Chris with our membership team will welcome you!

We are building our 4 teams:  clinicians, nurses, Community Care Team (mental and spiritual health), and administrative support.

How we are fighting back against COVID-19:  Our MRC is working in 3 main areas:

(1) COVID Testing and vaccination for island residents.  We need HCW volunteers to help.  For more on testing details: link.  In support of Tribal / rural communities, we have developed our Rural Test & Trace Toolkit (RT3): link.

(2) Mental Health and Spiritual Health.    We need volunteers (social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and people involved in faith and spiritual care) to help support our 12,000 residents facing the dual threats of a life-threatening virus, closed businesses, and massive job losses.

(3) PPE acquisition and appropriate distribution.  

We live in a special place, a place that gives us so much.  This pandemic asks each of us to give back to our community during this time of peril.  Please step up and contact us.  Below is more about our Vashon MRC.

Click here to watch our short video about the Vashon Medical Reserve Corps

Come meet with us.  We meet monthly on the 3rd Thursday at 3 p.m. for 1 hour.  During the pandemic we are meeting by Zoom teleconferencing. 

Who we are.  Our team includes clinicians and nurses, mental health professionals and chaplains, pharmacists, veterinarians, funeral home staff, administrative support staff, and others.   We organize ourselves using an ER team as a model - from initial encounter and triage, hands-on care and mental health support, to medication management.

MRCs rose from the rubble of the 9-11 attacks, recognizing the need for health-care professionals to prepare for disasters. The MRC is a partner program of Citizen Corps, a national network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring hometown security. Citizen Corps, along with the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Peace Corps, are part of the President's USA Freedom Corps.  

Why an MRC?  We choose to live an island in the Salish Sea, part of the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire.  Running below ground are major fault lines.  Above are sleeping volcanoes, symbols of our state.  Disasters have occurred here, such as the massive Cascadia earthquake in 1700.  Our island home has a history of being socked by storms and scorched by fire.  Climate change raises the ante.  Medical historians can recount past pestilence, prologue to the current pandemic of COVID-19.

Today about 12,000 people live on Vashon-Maury Island.  Homes are built on, or below unstable slopes prone to landslide.  Look around and you'll see an aging population some of whom can be expected to have multiple medical problems on multiple medications.

On this island, we have no urgent care and no emergency room.  We have a single pharmacy without a stockpile of medications.  For these reasons and more, we as a health-care professionals will need to be able to secure our homes and family, and then meet to provide emergency care for our island community.

Our mission in 3 parts:

1. Training
2. Medical support to VIFR
3. Put in place medical care "surge capacity" for disasters, both local and regional

When the emergency call comes:

We will report to Vashon Island Fire & Rescue, our MRC's sponsoring agency.  We will also be working closely with paramedics of Medic One on Vashon and BLS providers of VIFR.  Just like an ER team, we'll need to be able to do provide basics of triage, treat and support, and transfer when appropriate and when we can.

We are not alone:

Our MRC's housing agency and fiscal agent is VashonBePrepared.   Our MRC is one rope in a safety net woven and supported by VashonBePrepared through the island's multiple volunteers.  Included are:

EOC – Emergency Operations Center

CERT -  Community Emergency Response Team

MERT – Marine Emergency Response Team

ACS – Auxillary Communications Service

NERO – Neighborhood Emergency Response Organization

Thank you for your interest. 

Please join us.

The Community Care Team (CCT) is the volunteer counseling and behavioral health unit of Vashon Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), which is charged with responding to increased medical and mental health needs during a disaster or emergency. To learn more about CCT or to volunteer click here.

To be able to volunteer with the Vashon MRC, you need to become a Registered Emergency Worker (REW). This process has four steps:

1. Complete the MRC Orientation
2. Register and create a WASERV profile
3. Complete an online application as well as signing the online handbook with King County
   
4. Complete two on-line FEMA courses with certificates of completion

As health care professionals, we all undergo credentialing.  For our MRC, credentialing is done through King County Public Health.  Recognizing the staffing time that goes into this process, we are deeply appreciative of King County Public Health’s support in providing this HR service.

For more on this 4-step process, with links and contacts, click on Join the Vashon MRC.  If you have questions or run into problems, then contact us at MRCmembership@vashonbeprepared.org

MRC's Rural Test & Tracing Program at work.

Vashon Island may face natural environmental or terrorist disaster or other public health emergencies and, as an island reachable only by ferry, could be isolated from mainland  emergency resources.  In recognition of the need to prepare for, respond to and recover from such disasters and emergencies the Vashon Medical Reserve Corp:

• Motivates and educates our volunteers and citizens to be as self- reliant as possible during a disaster through advance planning and preparation.
• Forms partnerships with Island institutions, medical institutions and facilities, and volunteer groups to help create a structure capable of responding to a disaster or medical emergencies.
• Develops and maintains Island-wide disaster plans and procedures in collaboration with Vashon Island Fire and Rescue (King County Fire District 13) and Public Health Seattle and King County.
• Recruits, organizes, and trains volunteer staff for an Island Emergency Operations Center ( the EOC Team) and to staff alternative care facilities, utilizing the principles of the National Incident Management System in collaboration with Vashon Island Fire and Rescue and Public Health Seattle and King County
• Raises and manages funds and property in support of all these organizational purposes.

Vashon Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is modeled on the national MRC program and was formed to provide care for members of our community in case of any disaster that would overwhelm the resources of the fire department and clinics, and very likely isolate us by interruption of ferry service.

We are a part of the VashonBePrepared coalition, and support Vashon Island Fire & Rescue during any incidents. Our group includes medical professionals, such as MD, RN, NP Paramedics, EMTs,MA, DVM, and counselors.

When the Island is cut off during an earthquake or other disaster we need to be trained to step in and help in a planned manner. You can be part of that team-whether you're licensed, retired or just interested: we can help you help your neighbors!

Join us, it's interesting, it's fun and it's important! Active member requirements are being developed but will likely include periodic training (some with continuing education credits) and an occasional drill. Training may cover topics such as:

• setting up and running a temporary field hospital,
• a medication center and
• other emergency operations.

• Citizen Corps, MRC's parent program
• National Medical Reserve Corps
• Medical Reserve Corps Unit# 515: Vashon Island
• Vashon's entry in the national DB (currently broken)
• Public Health Reserve Corps (Seattle & King County's MRC)
• Public Health's Response Plans
• Pierce County Medical Reserve Corps
• Northwest Healthcare Response Network
• National Association of County and City Health Officials

Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) promotional videos NACCHO has numerous resources of use to Medical Reserve Corps Units across the country. They also have developed two videos to spread the word about the work of the MRC in communities across the country! The first video is a short promotion that can be used to recruit volunteers and is suitable for local TV networks. The second video is a longer overview about the scope of the MRC's volunteer activities and is great to share with your community's political and business leaders, partners, and stakeholders. Learn more about Medical Reserve Corps units throughout the U.S.
About the Medical Reserve Corps (1 min/1 sec.)	About the Medical Reserve Corps (6 min/45 sec.)