Important Update Regarding Mandatory Online Training for Volunteers and Staff
From AFSWiki
On April 1, all AFS-USA volunteers involved in host family recruitment and screening, orientations, and participant support, as well as all staff, received an email formally launching the new online Department of State Mandated Training Modules. Volunteers involved in host family recruitment and screening, as well as team chairs, volunteer coordinators, and volunteer registration interviewers, have until May 1 to complete the trainings. Volunteers involved in orientations and support have until August 1. For the complete list of affiliations please go to the DoS Mandated Trainings List of Required Affiliations page of the AFS Wiki.
All of the volunteers with the May 1 deadline have received 5 reminder emails about this training in the last month and will receive two more between now and Monday – one on Thursday, April 28 and a final notification on Monday, May 2. In addition, seasonal staff have been hired in St Paul to make follow-up calls to these volunteers. Reminder calls are also being made this week by Hosting staff and Volunteer Development staff.
On Thursday, May 5, any volunteer on the “May 1” list of volunteers who still needs to complete the training modules will have those affiliations made inactive until such time as the required training has been completed. Losing this affiliation will mean that they will not be able to access any information in Global Link regarding hosting recruitment, such as student applications and hosting leads. This change will not affect their status as a registered AFS volunteer, nor will it currently affect any affiliations they may have related to our sending programs, orientations, travel, participant support, treasurer, etc. If the volunteer completes the training after May 5, they will be able to immediately be given back their volunteer affiliations.
Beginning in early May, regular follow-up emails and phone calls will begin to volunteers with orientation and support-related affiliations, regarding the need for them to complete the training by August 1.
Effective immediately, no volunteer can be assigned hosting, orientation, and support-related affiliations until they have completed the HSA and DoS training modules.
In order to access the training modules, please log-in to the AFS-USA Online Training Center, located in the Resources section of Global Link. For those who have not previously accessed the Online Learning Center, we have created instructions for your convenience, which can be accessed on the AFS Wiki via the following link: Online Learning Center Navigation Guide.
If you have any questions about this, please email dostraining@afs.org
