Use these questions and activities to learn more about your Senior Corps grant. Write down your answers in a place where you can return to them, as some will build on each other as you progress through the curriculum.

If you have any questions as you proceed, contact your CNCS Program Officer.

Module 3

  1. Return to your list of questions from Module 1. Have any of these been answered?
  2. This course introduces the National Service Criminal History Check process. Your sponsor would have needed to successfully complete one of these checks on you before you could begin serving in your current role. Do you know where this check is? Locate it.
  3. If you have not already done so, take National Service Criminal History Check eCourse, available in Litmos. Using what you learned in this course, review your own file. Do you understand all of its components? If you are not sure if it was done correctly, contact your CNCS Program Officer immediately.
  4. Develop your own procedure for managing this process for both staff and volunteers. Neighboring Senior Corps programs and your CNCS Program Officer can be very helpful in this process.
  5. Conduct one “test” check on another individual, such as a colleague, an Advisory Council member, your friend, or yourself. Did your procedures cover everything? When it is done, review the documentation. Do you have all the documentation needed to prove a compliant check?
  6. Do you anticipate recruiting other staff members? If so, identify their titles. If you do not already have draft position descriptions, consider requesting examples from your colleagues.
  7. Create a first draft of your enrollment procedures, paying specific attention to documenting eligibility. Other Senior Corps programs and your Program Officer can both be helpful in this process. There are also many tools available in your program’s Operations Handbook.
  8. Test your procedures by walking through the enrollment process with a volunteer, such as a colleague, Advisory Council Member, a friend, or yourself. Did your procedures cover everything? When it is done, review the documentation. Do you have all the documentation needed to demonstrate eligibility?
  9. Create a first draft of your volunteer recruitment plan. You will likely want to continue learning more before implementing it, as the rest of this curriculum has useful information to help you. Consider this your very first skeleton plan, which you can return to and improve. To begin, answer the following questions:
  10. What are the minimum eligibility criteria for your volunteers?
  11. What are the criteria of a successful volunteer? You will want to prioritize your recruitment efforts towards volunteers that are likely to succeed in and stick with your program.
  12. What messages will you use to attract these volunteers?
  13. Where will you find potential recruits? Where do eligible volunteers that are likely to succeed gather? Remember to include online recruitment in your strategy.
  14. When will you begin reaching out to them? How long do you expect it to take to recruit a full cohort?
  15. When a potential volunteer indicates he or she is interested, what happens next?
  16. Create an orientation plan for your volunteers. What kinds of activities will you do with them? When? Where? Chapter 8 of your program’s Operations Handbook provides extensive information on volunteer orientation.
  17. This module and these activities cover a substantial amount of material. Set up a meeting with your Program Officer to discuss any questions you have about the material that has been covered so far. Remember that this course will return to many of these topics in more depth as you continue to progress.

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