The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA)

The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA)

The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) of 1997 was meant to promote volunteerism in non-profit organization entities. It is a pre-emption of the existing loose laws under which the volunteers are currently under, hence encouraging individuals to take part in more social services. Under this Act, no emergency needs to be declared to be protected by the VPA. The Act protects against civil liability only if:

• The volunteer acted within his or her job description guidelines.
• Possessed proper certifications, licenses or was sanctioned to act.
• Didn’t cause the harm that was as a result of gross negligence, criminal misconduct, willful misconduct or flagrant indifference to the safety and rights of the harmed individual.
• Didn’t impose harm while driving an aircraft, a bicycle or a motor vehicle.

Because we can’t tell whether state laws will remain the same all through, VPA provides steadfast protection for all non-profit personnel.

The Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) provides immunity to volunteers in non-profit organizations from the litigation brought by the organizations to the volunteers as a result of violating the criteria mentioned above. It also protects volunteers from abuse when serving both organizational and governmental entities. The Act is meant to expand traditional notions of a sovereign community, laws of a good Samaritan and a charitable community.

A noteworthy issue is that non-profit organization litigation is not protected by VPA. Also, the VPA is not mandated to give protection to an individual whose organization’s litigation has been served at the doorstep for going against the criteria mentioned in the synopsis. Therefore, organizations are liable for the individual’s recklessness even if the individual is under the VPA immune. This means that organizations have a responsibility of ensuring that their volunteers are acting as per the stipulated guidelines. To understand this better, we can consider a child who has been punished severely for swimming in a pool that is sponsored by the church. The individual who is liable in this case would not be the counsellor of the volunteering camp but the church itself. The church is to blame for not hiring a trained lifeguard.

Getting involved with the National Volunteer Organizations Active Disaster (NVOAD) helps volunteers to offer improved services throughout the cycle’s stages while encouraging a cooperative climate. The volunteers get to interact with one another exchange ideas on the best practices that would result in more resilient communities. In conferences, services and products are given at a discount, thus leaving people with extra savings. Participation in NVOAD also enables members to raise their concerns to federal agencies such as the Department of human services (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

As identified, spontaneous volunteers can do more harm than good. They hamper disaster response by generating safety, security and health issues, thus deflect the response personnel from their obligations. This forces the response personnel to abort their primary duties to form and allocate tasks to volunteers, run volunteer-related logistics and carry out supervision of their actions. Therefore, incident managers ensure that volunteers are safe, provide the necessary volunteer resources and escalate the ability of the response personnel to perform tasks effectively.