The Red Cross in Grand Island offered a workshop for volunteers who are also health care workers on what their role might be before and after a disaster.

The "Health Services Response Workshop" was for potential Red Cross volunteers with a current professional license or certification to practice - such as CNAs, EMTs, PAs, RNs, and even MDs. Dr. Kathleen Pepin, a Red Cross volunteer who was teaching the workshop, said the goal was to teach health care professionals to learn how to provide disaster assistance.

"We're not looking at triage," Pepin said. "What we're looking at is helping keep people well, safe, [and] getting them their basics so that they can get back up on their own feet, and move forward toward their own recovery."

Pepin said that the Red Cross does not provide first responders to disaster areas, but rather second responders. However, health care workers are still a necessary part of the second response effort.

The workshop on Saturday was covering the basics of Red Cross expectations, protocols, and a review of the guidebook. Pepin stressed that being a Red Cross volunteer does not mean that person will be deployed for weeks at a time - all assignments are voluntary. The class was less hands-on because the people in it already work with health care equipment everyday.

There were six people in attendance, a number Pepin said made it easy for her to address each individual.

"Health care workers are very diverse in their perspectives," she said. "They deserve being met at their own level."

For more about the "Health Services Response Workshop" click on the video link above.

Use the link below to visit the Grand Island Red Cross website.