COVID-19: Updates and Resources
JVC Northwest continues to monitor reports of COVID-19 global pandemic. We will continue to provide information to our JV/AmeriCorps members weekly as we learn of new updates and information to provide to each of you and how it may impact your service year. Read on for more information about potential impacts to your service and familiarize yourself with the guidance from the Center for Disease Control here . As we continue to receive guidance from health professionals, we will keep you all updated, recognizing our guidance and recommendations may change and shift as more information becomes available. Please reach out to your Program Coordinator (PC) with questions and concerns as they arise.
Dear JV/AmeriCorps members and Site Supervisors: 

In previous correspondence we set April 10 as a date by which we would re-evaluate our JVC Northwest recommendations for your activity. As the number of cases of COVID-19 reach peaks in many states, we are now asking you to begin following the timelines advised for staying at home set forth by your state and the federal guidance for social distancing, which currently extend through April. This week, AmeriCorps issued guidance regarding service, which includes allowance for members who have reached at least 50 percent of their service hours but who have not accrued the full 1700 hours  to exit with a full education award . We offer this information now to relieve concerns about accumulating enough hours. But we know you joined JVC Northwest because of your desire to serve and to live into our four core values. Below you will find a resource that describes multiple ways you can direct that desire to serve, regardless of how many hours you accumulate. 

This is a difficult time, one which has upended your program year with JVC Northwest. This outbreak and the call for us to stay at home has and will test our patience, but it also presents a chance for all of us to engage more deeply with the four core values. We encourage to you stay safe by staying home this upcoming weekend. For many, the seasons of Passover and Easter present unique chances to reflect on our lives and our challenges. No matter what you believe, we encourage you to lean into our values of spirituality and intentional community this weekend. Be present to one another. Support each other.  

After the holiday weekend, our program team will continue to adapt the regional retreat to a virtual format. We see this as an important experience for you individually and collectively. After the regional retreat on April 24-25, we will share tools and processes for you to discern what the rest of the program year might look like in light of your service being disrupted indefinitely between now and July. These tools will include our translation of the new AmeriCorps guidelines. As much as you are able, please be patient as you await that timeline and discernment process. 

Finally, a quick word about that discernment. We believe discernment is about considering and choosing not only what is best for you, but also for the world around you. Oftentimes that “best for the world around you” can feel complicated. We encourage you to be in conversation with your partner agency, your family, your intentional living community, and your local community. What do you hear about how your choices impact those around you? How are you pursuing options that promote the most good? How has being a Jesuit Volunteer transformed you? And how could you safely be of service to the larger community who may face great barriers to their own safety and health? 

This month will continue to feel tough as we navigate unforeseen realities together as a JVC Northwest community. Please summon new levels of patience, openness, and strength through vulnerability. The world is inviting all of us to consider how we can be of best service right now. However, there are no quick and easy answers. Hopefully the resources that follow will assist you as we live through these uncertain times. 

In peace, 

Greg Carpinello
Executive Director, JVC Northwest
Capacity Building Projects
We recognize that completing the Capacity Building Project (CBP) as originally planned may not be feasible for every JV/AmeriCorps member to due to the disruptions caused by COVID-19. If you are able to complete your CBP as planned or in a modified form, please continue doing so. If completion is not possible, we want to hear about what you were able to accomplish. We will have a CBP Review Form instead of the CBP Completion Form for all JV/AmeriCorps members to complete. Plan to respond to questions related to: if and how your original CBP was affected by the COVID-19 disruptions, whether you were able to continue the CBP, and, if so, how your project was left and how it might be picked up by future JVs, staff, or volunteers at your service site. The Review Form will be available in the coming weeks. 

For Site Supervisors and Partner Agencies: CBP Confirmation Forms and the Organizational Post Assessment are still required regardless of if a JV/AmeriCorps member completes their CBP. The Confirmation Form will be available after the completion of the Review Form, and the Assessment will continue as originally scheduled.

Contact Ben with any questions regarding the Capacity Building Project requirement.
Alternative Service and Training Options

We have begun compiling options for you to complete alternative service or training hours in one document. If you have something to add, please send suggestions along to your PC or to JV Program Manager Sarah Jones.
Spend some alternative service and/or training time collaborating with us! Time spent sharing with a wider audience about your service experience can be counted as service hours because it communicates to prospective JVs about service opportunities and improves the quality of service you provide. Time spent reflecting on other aspects of your JV experience (community seems very present right now, for example) can be counted toward training hours. We would welcome the opportunity to amplify your reflections, especially for prospective JVs who may be considering a position with your agency or in your locale, and can do so in the following ways:

  • We are looking for JV stories to lift up right now demonstrating what remote service looks like. Check out Alexa Jayne's (Portland, OR) reflection for a good example. Your story on how you are serving remotely/alternatively can be an inspiration and conversation-starter as we all deal with COVID-19. For help on your piece, contact Nancy Slavin, Communications and Grants Officer, at nslavin@jvcnorthwest.org.
 
  • Share reflections via photos and short videos via Instagram stories. Please make sure to include photo releases if there are clients featured. Here is a copy of the media release form. Check out the highlight on our Instagram (@jvcnorthwest) from Hannah Kosel (Missoula, MT) and her community for a great example. If you're interested in creating an Instagram story, Chris Suriano, our Recruitment Coordinator, can help you. Contact him at csuriano@jvcnorthwest.org.
 
  • Another reflection activity is to create a short, 60-second clip about what the Four Core Values mean to you. If you submit your clip by May 1, we will pull them together into a montage for use at upcoming events and beyond. Clips should be taken in landscape format and files should be .mov or .mp4. Send questions or clips to Nancy Slavin at nslavin@jvcnorthwest.org.
Retreats
While the in-person part of spring retreat has been cancelled, we will still be offering time and space for retreat and reflection on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25. Site Supervisors, we ask you to keep the dates clear from remote service requests, just as you would for the regional retreats if they were occurring in person. JVs, we ask you to continue to reserve this time for rest, recharge, and renewal. Retreat will consist of a few live sessions (including Coffee House!), a selection of recorded sessions, Mass, Prayer Service, print content, opportunities to connect with other JVs across the Northwest, and other materials, including a “retreat kit” that communities will receive in the coming weeks. 

The theme of Spring Retreat is Contemplatives in Action . As JV/AmeriCorps Members, you are invited to be a contemplative - one who not only uses their passions and skills - but also mindfully sets aside time to think on the past and present, so to move towards informed action for the future. The invitation is to reflect in a deep, intentional way on the experiences of the past nine months around the core values of JVC Northwest. This moment of pausing helps to provide an orientation towards a long view on how to co-create social, ecological, and equitable change throughout one’s life. Contemplatives create space for deep listening of their own desires, values, and needs- as well as the assets and needs of their local/global community. Seeking to take action moves them to be individual and collective agents of change. 

Stay tuned for more information! 
Resources and Support
Please continue to care for your mind, body, and spirit during this unprecedented time of uncertainty. We will continue to provide resources we have found helpful, but share with us what you're finding in your networks as well. A few resources to share:

If you have established care with a counselor, inquire about telephonic services. If you have yet to establish care, now is a good time. Remember that the  Member Assistance Program (MAP)  means you have access to free, 24/7 access to Masters level counselors through MAP and AllOneHealth.
Call 800.451.1834  and tell them you are in the JVC Northwest program.
Updates and Guidance by State
CDC Recommendations
Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest
p.503.335.8202 | f.503.249.1118