| |
 |
Congregational Planning for Flu
Pandemic
This resource is a guide for your congregation in preparing for a
potential pandemic. We believe that every congregation should make at
least basic preparation for this potential emergency as soon as
possible. All of the elements of preparation described in this resource
should be implemented as soon as possible. There may be factors unique
to your community that this resource can’t foresee, but it will help you
in making preparations around, communication, worship, pastoral care,
leadership and community outreach.
Communication
In the event of pandemic, it would be important to be able to
communicate rapidly with your congregation. It may be that people could
be discouraged by public health officials from gathering in groups, such
as at church. Many of the usual ways we communicate, i.e. telephone and
e-mail, may be over-taxed and unreliable. Therefore the best way to
guarantee the fullest communication is to identify and practice as many
different ways to communicate as possible. Even though you may develop
many different ways of communicating in order to prepare for a pandemic,
you will find that these ways can be applied now to enhance your
congregational life in many ways. You may wish to identify members of
your congregation that have particular expertise in information
technology. They could be helpful in preparing your congregation to use
many different ways of communicating. Enhanced means of communication
should minimally involve telephone, e-mail, Web page, Internet groups,
and podcasting.
Telephone
Discuss with a representative of your phone provider what the available
options are in your community for teleconferencing. Conference calls
permit large groups of people to communicate at the same time from their
homes and businesses. Your local phone provider may offer options you
can consider for conference lines and group calls. Additionally, you may
make a search of the World Wide Web to identify free conference call
facilities. There are also local and national companies that provide
conference calling services. Usually you only pay for the services when
you actually use them, but if you wish to pursue this option you should
arrange for an account with such companies ahead of time because they
will be swamped with new requests if a pandemic happens.
Automated calling services are also available. To find some of the
options available commercially, just enter “voice broadcasting service”
in a Web search engine and you’ll find a number of vendors.
Many congregations have prayer chains over the phone. You can expand
this concept to create a congregational calling tree to be of use for
inquiring after the well-being of your members and sharing information.
E-mail
While there are still people without an e-mail address, most people
today have an e-mail address. E-mail is the most popular form of
communication after the telephone. Request that congregational members
provide an e-mail address and ask their permission to use it to share
important information.
Create e-mail lists of all your members so that you can send messages to
everyone simultaneously. Many congregations send a version of their
newsletters electronically and save postage costs.
Assure members that you will use their e-mail addresses only according
to the ways they agree for them to be used. Remember that the “polite”
way of addressing group e-mail is to include the list of recipients in
the “Blind Copy” field, so that the list of addresses doesn’t print out
to be longer than the content of your message. Your information
technology savvy members can assist the congregation in drafting a
privacy policy.
Web Page
If your congregation doesn’t already have a Webpage, you really should!
People increasingly turn to the Web for information. You can provide up
to date information through the Web that people can access from
anywhere. You can also update the information from anywhere.
For tips on starting or enhancing your congregation Web presence, check
out www.elca.org/webministry
There you’ll find lots of ideas and links to other resources,
including sources for free Web hosting (e.g.
www.lutheransonline.com)
and timely information you can include on your site.
Through Lutherans Online you can create a free Web page. The site also
contains elements of another useful communication tool, the Internet
Group.
Internet Group
Internet groups are similar to Web pages, but have many more
capabilities. An Internet group goes beyond a Web page by not merely
sharing information but also permitting a group of people to communicate
with each other in important ways including live-time electronic
chatting, file sharing, and messaging.
If you have a commercial Web page, your current Internet service
provider may offer elements of Internet Groups that could enhance your
current Web page to include these functions. Again Lutherans Online Web
pages include many of the same functions that Internet Groups can serve.
Congregations should have all of the above communication channels
identified and frequently practiced so that in an emergency, you can
reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Outside of an
emergency, it is still a good idea to create the capability to
communicate your congregation’s programs in numerous ways.
Podcasting
Podcasting is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing
users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by
subscription, usually at no cost. It first became popular in late 2004,
used largely for audio files. Worship
In the event of a pandemic, some communities may face periods of
quarantine. People may be asked to stay in their homes. Public health
officials may discourage public gatherings like worship. Your members
however will yearn for the solace and comfort that worship provides in
times of fear and crisis. Therefore, you may need to identify and
practice ways to provide people with an experience of communal worship
that can be done remotely and electronically. All of the channels of
communication created for the pandemic can be used to communicate an
experience of worship.
Perhaps you could plan for people to attend the worship service over a
conference call. Perhaps you can videotape a copy and provide it over
your Web site. People can gather in live-time Internet chat rooms
created for your congregation to provide each other support. Copies of
worship bulletins can be e-mailed or downloaded from your Web site or
Internet group so people can feel connected to the congregation. You can
envision the channels of communication most suited to enable your
congregation to have an experience of worship if they couldn’t gather
publicly during a period of quarantine.
It will probably not be possible to gather everyone in a congregation in
one single electronic format. By using all of the channels of
communication available to you, you can reach as many people as possible
with the sense of hope and comfort worship can bring.
The ELCA is preparing worship materials that will address the fears and
anxieties people would experience in pandemic. These materials will be
downloadable from the ELCA home page in time of emergency.
Pastoral Care
Like worship, Pastoral Care provides us with a great sense of hope and
comfort when facing a difficult time. A time of pandemic could
unfortunately bring significant illness and death into our lives. People
would need pastoral care more than ever during this time.
Obviously the best way to provide pastoral care is through quiet and
comforting personal presence. However, it is possible to provide
pastoral care through the same electronic channels of communication that
you would need to use to provide worship. It may be necessary to provide
pastoral care through these electronic communication channels both
because of the need to stay in quarantine and also because of the
greater numbers of people who will need the care at that time. It may be
impractical or even impossible to attend to the pastoral care needs of
the entire congregation in person.
The ELCA is preparing pastoral care guides that will assist pastoral
care givers in caring for people under the specific circumstances of
quarantine, mass illness, and death that pandemic could generate.
Leadership
The potential of pandemic requires certain contingencies be considered
in leadership issues. Congregations and Synods together should prepare
succession plans for leadership on the congregational and synod levels
in the event that leaders succumb to flu or are unavailable for lengthy
periods of time. This may involve clarifying who is to function in
certain roles if the people in those roles cannot do so. Some form of
succession should be determined for every rostered leader.
The shape of these succession plans can be different from place to
place. They minimally detail:
• The conditions under which succession occurs, or not; e.g.
incapacitation of a leader.
• The method of notification
• The level of authority assumed by successors
Succession plans should also be three deep, that is, they should detail
not just one person who succeeds another, but someone to succeed that
individual as well. On a congregational level, this may include which
area pastors assume responsibility for which congregations if a pastor
is incapacitated.
Basic decision should be made about which congregational services are
essential and should be maintained throughout a time of emergency and
which congregational services can be suspended until after the emergency
has passed.
On the congregational level, lay leaders should be identified to assume
responsibility over various functions in the event that professional
staff was unavailable. Office, maintenance, computer, and communication
functions should each have lay leaders designated to assume
responsibility over them in an emergency setting.
Community Outreach
While pandemic may require that members of the congregation stay in
their homes for a period of quarantine, the congregation and its
facilities may also be of great benefit to the wider community.
Hospitals, clinics, public health agencies, and disaster response
organizations may be able to benefit by being able to use your facility
to serve the community. Your congregation may be able to serve as an
immunization site for your community. Your congregation may be able to
serve as a spill over facility for a hospital. Your congregation may be
able to serve as a disaster service center.
Prepare a description of your facilities, i.e. a list of rooms, offices,
kitchens, bathrooms, and other details of your building. Communicate
with local emergency management officials in your community and offer
your facility to be of use in a time of emergency.
Links for Pandemic Preparedness Planning
www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic
The above sites contain up to date information
on planning for many sectors including government, business, and home.
Additionally the sites provides a planning information and checklists
for faith-based organizations at:
www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/faithcomchecklist.html
|
