Good Morning All, 

I am curious to hear what other hospitals have in place for youth volunteers. In our organization, we currently do not allow volunteers under the age of 18. Does anyone have a policy in place regarding age limits on volunteering? If you do allow under 18 volunteers, what is the on boarding process and expectations of those volunteers. 

Thanks, 

Caroline Davidson 

At St. Mary's, Richmond VA, we start Jr Vols at age 15. We have a very high application rate and only accept about 20% of students who apply. We currently have 125 Jr Vols. We take students in all year-round, and require volunteering year-round (6-8 hrs/month, 100 hrs/yr). We do not run ANY type of summer-only program. Jrs help with patient discharge, wayfinding, info desks, escort/transport via W/C at Pt Admitting to treatment area, help families find their way to PACU/Recovery from Surgical Waiting Desk, and run all kinds of errands/deliveries such as newspapers, pt mail, flower delivery, lab/specimen runs, blood bank runs, pharmacy runs, etc.  Juniors are mostly available M-F 4pm - 7/8pm, Sat/Sun 8a-8p. We run an Information Session that all applicants AND parent/legal guardian are REQUIRED to attend before their application will be considered. I am NOT a fan of "group interviews" but we also don't interview every student who applies, we consider their interest/demeanor at the Info Session, their application, and two references before deciding who to interview. The Info Session is VERY eye-opening and a GREAT tool for us to determine who to interview. If you want more info, please feel free to contact me directly at christinedelaughter@bshsi.org

Our Jr volunteers are ages 14-18.  They volunteer 2 three week sessions Monday-Thursday from 8:30am to 1:30pm. They work everywhere the seniors do with the exception being ICU. They also run a popular candy cart.  I can take no more than 25.