 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, please have your seat. We'll get started with the Voluntary Services Seminar. This morning, I'm going to be talking to you about a program that will be the first department rolling out called DAV 360. So we're going to do a, this is an unusual seminar for us because we normally have VA staff. Joining me this morning is Ms. Katie Yocchi. She's the supervisor of Voluntary Services. And Mr. Bill Ballman, who's my deputy representative on the National Advisory Committee. First slide, please. Voluntary Services staff consists of seven people. Six of us are stationed at National Headquarters in Cold Spring, Kentucky, and one of us is in Washington, D.C. Jennifer Gay, who's my assistant, handles all administrative functions for myself and Katie, and is part of the DAV 5K Task Force, handles all aspects of our celebrity volunteers and supports the Jesse Brown Scholarship Program. Connie Kinney, many of you probably talked to, is in charge of our Transportation Network Program. She is responsible for seeing our van program from beginning to finish, from applications to decalding and to releasing the vehicles to the departments and chapters. Brady Griffin is in charge with keeping up the Transportation Network HSCs and VAVS program managers, running smoothly and takes care of all our VAVS and LVAP hours and reporting. Ms. Odie Hall handles all Jesse Brown Scholarships and George H. Sill applications. She handles the certifications for our representatives and provides support for VAVS and LVAP programs as well. And Ms. Linda DeMartina, who's in Washington, D.C., works on the Winter Sports Clinic and helps the program keep running smoothly year after year. She also provides support for the service staff. Excellent. Links will be provided at a later date, page formatting and fields are subject to change. The voluntary services is tentatively scheduled to go live at DAV 360 in 2015. Please note that what we're showing you today is gonna look different when this rolls out, but this will give you a basic idea of what to expect. The overall look of this product and branding is also going to change with the DAV colors. Next slide. There will be several changes to the way we do things in voluntary services. This seminar is designed to go through what we are currently working on in DAV 360 and prepare you for what procedures will change with this new product. I'm sorry. And at the end of this, we'll give you a link so you can access this on the DAV website. I'm sorry, I probably should have prefaced this whole thing by saying that. So feel free, if I'm going too fast, tell me like this gentleman just did and we'll slow her down, all right? Volunteers that are currently in the DAV Voluntary Service Database will have all information moved over to DAV 360. You'll have no need to create a new account. New volunteers will need to create an account in DAV 360. This will replace the current VA form or the form 20 that we use. So creating account. You will need to sign into my DAV public site to create an account. At the top of the page, you will see a create account link. You will click on the link to sign up all new volunteers. Volunteers will also be able to fill in this information themselves. If a volunteer signs up without the help of a VAVS rep, hospital service coordinator, LVAP coordinator, the proper notifications will be sent to those individuals. The site will default to a profile search. This will help us avoid duplicate entries. If a profile is found, you will be directed to contact voluntary services. Your account will be verified and we can provide you with a username and password. If no profile is found, you will create your new account. The account creator will ask a series of questions. The first page will ask for personal information and membership information if applicable. Page two will ask for volunteer and facility information. Now this is a multi-select option. You can select one volunteer type or all. Page three will ask you to create a user account. This must be an email address and a password. If the volunteer does not have an email address or computer access, you can contact our department for help. Entering volunteer hours. Hours for the transportation network, VA voluntary services, VAVS and local veterans assistance program can now be entered directly into DAV360 system. Hours will be entered using DAV360 staff site. Reports can still be mailed or emailed to the voluntary services department for entry if there is no access to a computer system. So we wanna make this as easy as possible on everybody. Each VA facility, chapter and department will be entered into the DAV360 as a community. These communities will be used to enter the volunteer data. The VAVS program manager, hospital service coordinator or LVAP coordinator will be listed as such in the community and this will allow them to enter the data. To do this, you will manage volunteers under the community page. You'll be able to see each community that you are listed as a coordinator for. Clicking on a community name will take you to a list of positions associated with the facility or department. The design and functionality of these pages is still in process, so keep in mind the final product will look significantly different from what you're looking at today. Active volunteers will be listed by name and you will be able to see date of birth and address to determine that you are choosing the correct volunteer. If you do not see the volunteer you're looking for, you can choose add person and this will let you search the database for the correct volunteer or add someone who is not yet in the system. To enter hours, you will just click on the volunteer's name. Click on the name will bring up a listing of volunteer hours. To make an additional entry, just click the plus at the top of the right hand of the screen. This will bring up the hours screen. You will choose the type of hours, LVAP, VAPs, transportation or whatever it pertains to, the number of hours in the month and date that the hours were volunteered. We do know that this screen will also have to include miles and veterans transported for the transportation network hours. This will be included before the final rollout. Once the information is entered, you would just choose save and close. Volunteers will now be able to look at their own profile and see what hours they have and what awards they have qualified for. There will be a more detailed user guide sent out when the DAV360 system goes live. Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship Program, the Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship application and nomination form will be moved into the DAV360 for the 2016 award year. The application process will begin November 2nd, 2015. Links for the application will also be released in November. The DAV Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship Program was created to honor the outstanding volunteers who are active participants in the VA voluntary services program and or the local veterans assistance program. Keep in mind eligibility, the youth must be under the age of 21 or younger with 100 or more hours volunteered. VAVF's hours must be credited to DAV. That is a new change for this year. Previous requirement was 100 hours within the previous calendar year. We changed that to open up eligibility for some more youth who are volunteering their time. This form is used for the youth volunteers who wish to self- nominate for the Jesse Brown Youth Memorial Scholarship. This application will be found on the myDAV page. When applying online, this will take the youth volunteer through several questions pertaining to their volunteerism. After filling out the information on each page, the volunteer will be able to move to the next page, return to the previous page, save the application and come back or delete the application. The volunteer will be required to attach a 750 to 1000 word essay defining what volunteering has meant to them. They can also attach any additional documentation they would like considered. Any additional information they can include may be letters of recommendation from VA program managers or other VA leadership, letters from parents or teachers, news articles about youth volunteer, et cetera. After all the information has been filled out, the volunteer will submit the application and the voluntary services staff will be alerted that a new submission has been made. This form is used for VA program managers and DAV department agidents who wish to nominate an outstanding youth volunteer for the Jesse Brown Youth Memorial Scholarship. This application will be found on the DAV 360 staff site. Under voluntary services, you will see the Jesse Brown nomination link. After answering each set of questions, you will need to click the next page to move forward. Please note that the requirements for the 2016 scholarship years have changed to 100 hours of VA, VS, and or LVAP hours during the volunteer's lifetime. This replaces the previous requirement of 100 hours during the previous calendar year. If the volunteer has contributed hours through both programs, please answer both. You will need to know the number of hours the youth volunteered throughout each program and how many years they have been an active volunteer. You will enter the volunteer's personal information as well as the contact information for the VA, VS program manager and LVAP coordinator if applicable. We realize that if you're filling out the information for only one program, you will be entering your own contact information. Please do so in case the voluntary services staff needs to contact you for some further information. You will be asked to fill out questions pertaining to the youth volunteers work ethic and value to the VA medical center or local veterans assistance program to which they have donated their time. Again, the youth must write a 750 to 1000 word essay on what volunteering means to them. This essay must be attached electronically to the nomination form. You can also attach additional documents with any documentation you may want to consider. Additional documentation could include letters of recommendation, thank you letters from patients or volunteers, news articles about the youth volunteer. By clicking the submit button, this will submit the recommendation and alert us that a new scholarship has been, or a new applicant has applied. The DAV and DAV George H. Seal, you are not able to self nominate on the GHS awards. This form is used for VA program managers and DAV department agents who wish to nominate an outstanding DAV or DAV volunteer for the George H. Seal award. This application will be found on the DAV 360 staff site. Under the voluntary services, you will see the George H. Seal nomination link. To begin the nomination, you will choose whether the nominee is a DAV or DAVA member. If the volunteer is not a member, you will see notice that they are not eligible for the award. A volunteer is only permitted to receive the GHS award once. They can be nominated multiple times. You will enter the volunteer's chapter or unit number as well as their personal information. You will enter the nominee's volunteer experience and you will enter the award criteria for the nominee. This is the reason why you think the volunteer should be given the George H. Seal award. After all information has been filled out, you will submit the application and again we will be notified that a new submission has been made. The link is at the top of this screen here, so feel free to write it down if you have a problem with or you need us to write it down for you. Come on up, we'll be glad to do it. Are there any questions pertaining to this new program that we're gonna be rolling out this year? Yes, sir. Yes, you can put those hours in under the local veterans assistance program. No, it will not. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes. You can just a month and year so you can combine them all and enter them at once. Uh-huh, thank you. Yes, sir. I didn't see what a chapter can be indicated. Is there gonna be a way to put that on the page? Yes, it's actually under the community. The only reason that you saw the VAMC on there is because I went in through that VAMC. I'm gonna use the mic, I'm just letting her... Okay, he said, is there a way that they'll be able to identify a particular chapter because you couldn't see that on the screen. We went in through the hospital. Yes, you would go in under the communities tab and you could find a particular chapter if they're tracking their local veterans assistance program hours. And the volunteer can enter their own hours. And did that answer your question? All right. Yes, sir. Yes, John, good morning, my name is Bill Hall. We have me, I'm from the Department of Massachusetts. I'm a BAB as the president of Boston and I'm also with the Department of Service Office. Now, when I volunteer to do my time on Mondays, Monday and Tuesdays, when I do my department service office or hours, are they two separate entities as far as hours being to volunteer, or can that be bridged together? I'm gonna try to summarize this question. He's asking if his volunteer hours as a department service officer should be broken up or put together. Is that your question? Monday, I log in my hours as far as volunteering goes. I think I do like four, five hours there. Then after that, I do three or four hours of a department service officer in the same office facility. So how do those hours coordinate as far as hours on the sheet when you folks can get it done? Well, I would be putting your service officer hours under the local veterans assistance program and the other hours that you do at the facility at Boston Health Care through VAVS or Transportation Network, correct. So that's how I would enter those hours separately, okay? Yes, sir. At this point, putting in the time, if you stop, would you change, is that gonna change my duties or are the Boston stairs gonna happen? No, it's not gonna change your duties. You're just gonna be able to input everything in this program. So you can still do it the way you're doing it. You can still send the paperwork to us. We'll help education get you up to where you need to be. You'll still be doing things the way you're doing it today just in this program, okay? It's gonna roll out this year. We're hoping to have this out by November when the scholarship and the George H. Seill nominations roll out. Sir, I'm sorry I just walked in, but I have a question that I think involves this very subject here. I am a driver and I load all of my time on the VAVS system while I'm driving. Can I, do I report those hours back through my VAVS rep also or? No, then you would be duplicating your effort. So I don't do the driving hours, but then I also do a number of hours of doing itineraries and calling the guys and all that, which is not driving hours. It does not get loaded to the VAVS system. Those I can count? Yes, you can. Okay, thank you. Any more while we wait? Yes. Good morning, John. Good morning. Submit your LVF report online. It locks you out, so if somebody sends you a late submission or you get something late from VAVS for input for a volunteer, you can't go back and add it or edit it. In this program, you can contact us and we'll be able to help you get that taken care of, okay? Morning, brothers. I'm volunteering with me personally at the veterans' home, but I am registered through the VAVS. But what if you work, is there 20 hours that you do your volunteering or is that just a little bit? So when you're doing your time at the state veterans' home, you can report that through LVAP, Local Veterans Assistance Program. So we don't have a tab or a community for state veterans' home, but that'd be an ideal place to log those hours. Okay, thank you, Rose. Any other questions? Everybody's really excited about this program, right? Yes. Yes. Are we gonna get a user's manual? Yes. Will there be a user's manual? Yes, there will be a user's manual. We're working on that as we get closer to our rollout. We'll have that all put together. Yes. Linda from Kansas, what I've done with my volunteers, I made up a sheet that shows the whole month and they each have one and they enter what they've done, whether it's a funeral or take somebody home and stuff like that and that's been really helpful. I bet it does. That's a great idea. Yes, sir. The web-based program, so you would just log in through whatever browser you use and you would go into it that way. It'll work on a Mac or on Windows, no matter what your operating system is. He said, will this work on an Apple product? It's a web-based application on a work or any product that you have. He specifically asked about an app and I don't know if there will be an app on your phone to be able to do it, but you could log in through Safari and submit everything. Yes, that's correct. You'll be able to generate a report as a user for what they're doing. You had a question here, sir? Yeah, just the LBAP and I'm currently on the waiting form of Virginia, chapter 20. With the LBAP hours, not currently, we provide all of us as one person of the chapter who actually reports it to state, enough. Now, there's no way when we be doing it ourselves, will that person from the chapter be able to tap in and see what each member of the chapter's done? You should still do it the way you're doing it now through the department. The chapter should report to the department. The department can report it in. But will the individual report themselves on the system over that one person from the chapter be funded? The one person from the chapter would be the one doing it, okay? Yes, sir? I'm sorry, I came in late. I was waiting in another room, but you all were in the wrong place. Is this replacing LBAP? I don't see LBAP shown up there. No, it's not replacing LBAP. LBAP's one of the programs we use to recognize volunteers. This is a program we're using to consolidate all of our reporting practices. So we're not replacing any programs. We're updating the database in which we use to track stuff currently. Okay, so we're improving LBAP. Well, we're improving our reporting procedures in our tracking of all the volunteering that you're doing. Uh-huh, yes? The new project for chapter one in Georgia. Will we be able to check this ourselves every month also? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Any other questions? Yes, sir? Can we be able to access this system at our home, on our home systems? Yes, anywhere you have access to the internet, you'll be able to access this system with your username and your password. Yes, sir? Be again. As far as you're liking the membership, you'll have to be, to get onto the program, you've got to be an accident, you've got to get permission from the headquarters of IT. Can anyone in the chapter already get on there and add a profile so they can get on it? As far as they're restricted, there's no problem. They would be able to get on it. Okay, what's the question? You just arrived. He asked, will anybody be able to log on and check their inner hours? Is that correct? Check their hours, yes. Because right now, the membership, you've got to be a certain position, or you can't log on to the membership page. So he's talking about what they do in the membership department versus what we're doing in the voluntary services department. So anybody can get on that page. Do you have to have a profile in there to get on that page? Once you create a user account, you can get in and see all of your information. Now, if you're an LVAP coordinator or if you're the person that's designated to enter hours for all of the volunteers, then you would be able to see all of the volunteers. But if you're a volunteer at a facility, you'll only be able to see yourself and you won't be able to enter hours for yourself. You'll just be able to see what's been entered. Yes, sir. Currently under LVAP, I'm the adjutant for my chapter. I track all the hours for my chapter and I turn them into departments who enter it. Sometimes we've got nearby chapters that aren't in the LVAP program and we let them go through our chapter and we count their hours so that they get to the system. Can we still be able to do that? Yes. Any other questions? That's what I'm talking about. Oh, there we go. Yes, sir. No, that's fine. I want to answer all your questions. Currently you're registered to the system at the Philadelphia Forum 20 on it. Will that change or will I still have the Philadelphia Forum 20 to give them? It will change. As it said on the slide here, this program will be replacing the Forum 20. You would log in, add a new volunteer, search by their name. If there's a person by that name, you'll be instructed to contact us so we can verify we're looking at the right person. What about we have separate awards from the Forum there for our volunteers and stuff? Now will I be able to send volunteer hours and stuff up to them so they can give off their awards? Sure, you can contact us or generate a report as a user and send that to them. You're welcome. Any more questions? All right, how many people are excited about this program? Now we should have everybody's hand in the air. Come on, if you're interested in volunteer. There we go, wave them, wave them, you all right. Everybody's awake. You have a question right here? No, you're just excited about it, all right. Hey, well, I appreciate everybody coming in this morning. I'll be around in the area in the ballroom near the, yes, sir. Well, let's talk about it. What do we want to talk about? All right, Rich. The BTS program. Are other states having the same problems we're having with BTS? There are problems across the country with the BTS and the VTN. They're not as in-depth as the problems that you're having in Florida. When the interim secretary for health, or now when Ms. Clancy sent that letter out, that cleared up most of the problems. I think you're still having your problems in Florida that you and I talked a little bit about yesterday. We'll touch base on that again and we'll figure out what we can do to help. The big problem, John, is what I see is BTS is trying to show usage. So they take one patient and if they're transported from point A to point B, that's a patient transported that way. If they take that same patient, transport from point B back to point A, that's another patient transported. So they're counting the same patient twice. We count that patient twice. And what they're doing now is they're wanting us to take our patients to another center, put them on a BTS van and take them back to another center. And when we get past that center to get to the other, you know, it's just crazy, John. So we have to step into this somehow in demand of VA. But this has to be cleared up, John, because it's causing a lot of problems in our whole system. All right, Rich, I'm working on that like I told you yesterday. So, okay. Minimum age for escorts to ride our vans. If not, why not? We had a six-year-old child and the VA put on as an escort. There is no minimum age for putting an escort on a van. I'll find the answer to that, Rich, and get that to you. Yeah, I would agree to that. Six years old, wow. Number, another point. We pick patients up to their houses. How is that based on financial need, transportation need? How is that patient, what is the category we can put that patient in? Because right now we do it first come first serve. We're going to transport so many patients a day. We can go into the dating community and pick a guy up with three Cadillacs in his driveway. You leave the guy who's almost a damn homeless veteran sitting down in San Orlando who can't get there. That was like more of a statement than a question here. That's a fact. Thanks, Al. The priorities for picking people up from their houses is established by the program manager, okay? So at your facility, if they say you can go pick somebody up at their house, there's no criteria they need to meet. That's what I'm saying. So is it still going to be first come first serve or can my program manager differentiate between people who really need to transport or the people who can afford to transport themselves? We want to give as many people a ride as possible. I don't want to leave anybody out, even if they got three Cadillacs in their driveway. I think that's great. But work that out with your program manager there. Let me know what comes out of that. And the last one we talked about yesterday, self-contained oxygen. That really needs to be taken care of because patients with the oxygen, they're not carrying the big tanks anymore. I agree with you wholeheartedly. These people, they go to special mode, they go to VTS, how do these people get to a medical center for treatment? I'll say this like I told you, I think most places, if it's a self-contained unit, they will let them in the vehicle. If it's the bottle, that's what we're concerned about, okay, the tank. So I'll get clarification on that for you from central office so we can get that disseminated to all program managers across the country. Because that has to be consolidated into one program because some drivers are doing it and some are. And the ones that are doing it are violating VA rules. Correct. So if they were to get into an accident, they had somebody with their well-o self-contained units on the van and that could be a problem. Absolutely. I'll work on getting some clarification and get that disseminated to all program managers about the machines that we're talking about. Thanks, Rich. Yes, ma'am. This is Linda from Kansas. What I was gonna tell the gentleman, what we did at our two VA's there, a social worker has to submit a request into transportation. And that's our priority. The ones that the social worker has, if we have time to pick up another person or more, that's what they do. Thank you. I agree with you 100% on that because in the VA's own regulation, it says a VA employee must certify this personnel for a right plan. And it's normally the social workers, but I know in my facility in Orlando, the social workers don't wanna do it. And that's a VA problem. That's correct. Any other questions? Anybody wanna talk about anything else? Yes, Mary Ann. Just a statement on that because after Florida as well, every hospital in Florida operates differently on that program. And it should be consistent across the whole state. I agree, that's something that, there needs to be consistency amongst the programs that are being run at the facilities. Yes, sir. Then I'll come to you. Go ahead, go ahead. Are you working on trying to get the standards on the physical mode instead of having to take the same physical as a 40-hour work at the VA? Because we get a lot of vendors that wanna drive. We get a lot of volunteers that wanna drive. But when they go through that physical, they kick them out nothing right. Yes, sir. Funny you did say that. I'm actually working on a process on one of the committees to try to improve the physical screening for our volunteers, okay? That was your question. All right, great minds think alike. Any other questions? Yes. Are you talking about this program here? This is a DAV program. And we will educate the program managers about this program when it's all ready to go. Anything else? All right.