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| Pandemic Flu Resources for
Congregations |
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| Pandemic Outbreak
Planning |
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| The collaboration of Faith-Based
and Community Organizations with public health agencies will be
essential in protecting the public’s health and safety if and when
an influenza pandemic occurs.
Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a checklist that
provides guidance for religious organizations (churches, synagogues,
mosques, temples, etc.), social service agencies that are
faith-based, and community organizations in developing and improving
influenza pandemic response and preparedness plans. |
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| The new checklist identifies
specific steps faith-based and community organizations can take now
to prepare for a pandemic. The checklist includes these suggested
actions: |
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Plan for the impact of a pandemic on your organization and
its mission |
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Communicate with and educate your staff, members, and
persons in the communities that you serve |
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Set up policies to follow during a pandemic, including
evaluating activities and religious practices, if
applicable, to identify those that may facilitate virus
spread from person to person |
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Coordinate with external organizations and help your
community |
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| Many of the links on this page
are to PDF Files. |
| You will need Adobe Acrobat
Reader or a similar PDF reader to read and print these documents. |
| You can
Download
Acrobat Reader for free from Adobe. |
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| For more information: |
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| Six Simple Ways for
Churches to Respond to Flu Season |
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| From the Pacific Central
District Newsletter |
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| Health officials estimate that 80%
of disease transmission could be avoided if we all were better at
washing our hands more frequently. Now would be a great time to pay
more attention to that. Here are half a dozen other things our
congregations can do this year: |
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- Place bottles of hand sanitizer in classrooms, offices, and
even the sanctuary/lobby. Encourage those who handle the
Offertory donations to be especially good about washing their
hands afterwards.
- Be sure to have the nursery and children’s toys sanitized
each week - this is a good all-year-round idea anyway.
- Instruct the greeters to warmly welcome visitors without
shaking hands - many visitors may feel uncomfortable with such
physical contact this season anyway.
- Develop a simple Nursery and RE Classroom policy, and be
sure all the parents know about it. This can be as basic as
saying, “As part of our efforts to keep our church/fellowship a
healthy and safe place, we ask that you keep children at home if
they’ve had a cough or runny nose within the last 24 hours, or
have had a fever within the last 48 hours. We appreciate
everyone’s cooperation.”
- Encourage everyone to stay home when they aren’t feeling
well! This should include staff, the Music Director, DRE, and
our ministers. But, let’s face it, they’re going to be mighty
reluctant to stay home if there’s not a back up plan in place
for their absences.
- So let’s create those back up plans. One example of such a
plan is Church-in-a-Box: it’s a box of materials, all ready to
go whenever needed, including a sermon that a Worship Associate
has already become familiar with, easy-to-play hymnal
selections, opening, offertory, and closing words, and several
copies of an undated Order of Service. Let’s make it comfortable
for all staff to call someone on a Sunday morning to say, “You
know, just to be on the safe side, I think I’d better stay home
today.”
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| Red Cross Information |
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| A UU Case Study: First
Unitarian Society in Minneapolis |
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