Directorate of Prevention, Resilience and Readiness

Garrison Council Focuses on Soldier Readiness, Resiliency

11/30/2020
It’s one thing for Soldiers and Family members to be told people are the military’s number one priority; it’s another to experience it first-hand. That’s the purpose of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s Commander’s Ready and Resilient Council (CR2C), part of an Army-wide initiative to help Soldiers deal with health, housing, finances, and other issues so they can focus on their jobs and be physically, emotionally, and mentally ready for whatever comes their way. Each garrison runs their CR2C program similarly, but Rheinland-Pfalz has decided to go a step further by taking a more grassroots approach and talking to the people affected.

Sleep: The Force Multiplier

11/27/2020
Dr. Tracy Jill Doty, Chief of the Sleep Research Center at WRAIR in Bethesda, Md spoke at the 2020 Performance Psychology Summit, Nov. 12-13, about the effects of sleep and sleep deprivation for the Army. This article discusses the impact of sleep on overall health and its relationship with caffeine, as well as a new online tool to calculate sleep and caffeine intake.

Resilience, Who Needs It?

11/27/2020
Soldiering can be a tough profession. It can be tough to manage additional responsibilities like parenting, attending college, maintaining a home, finances–basically, life. The past year has brought additional life stressors and separations from loved ones. It is important that we continue to check-in with ourselves, and understand how we are, or are not, coping. How will you not just cope or get by, but learn, grow and thrive? Resilience.

Guard Member Shares Past, Gives Voice to Suicide Prevention

11/25/2020
Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Clifford Bauman shares his story of overcoming his suicide attempt after searching for survivors of the 9/11 Pentagon attack. He adopted a new, life-affirming mindset that saved his career. But most important, he learned how to deal with his post-traumatic stress effectively. In recent years, he's taken what he described as his "life promotion" message to Veterans Affairs events, Army and Marine Corps units, and civilian organizations. He's also participated in video projects that raise suicide awareness.

Secretary of the Army Addresses the SHARP Program

11/18/2020
In this video statement, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, addresses the current status of the SHARP Program.

Army Breaks Ground on New Soldier Performance Institute

11/12/2020
The Army recently broke ground on a new institute that will serve as the base for human performance research at the Soldier and squad level. The Soldier and Squad Performance Research Institute will be located at Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. The center has long been the epicenter for advanced science on Soldier gear, clothing, chow, tents, individual warfighting equipment, injury prevention, nutrition needs, and more.

Soldiers Benefit from Psychological Health Research

11/09/2020
Scientists at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s, now referred to as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory and the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, developed a Hostile Bias Modification Training protocol to reduce hostile attribution bias, anger and reactive aggression in ambiguous social conflict situations, which can jeopardize social bonds, relationships with significant others, team culture, and performance.

Medal of Honor Recipient Stays Connected to Army by Helping Others

11/09/2020
Medal of Honor recipient Leroy Petry is still focused on helping Soldiers, “One of the things that I've been focusing on primarily is suicide prevention — veterans and active duty,” he said. “It's something that is continuing to grow, especially with this coronavirus. It's isolated a lot of folks and that's really [increased] the numbers. The worst thing you could do is isolate somebody that's already having mental health issues.”

Army Reserve's New Command Surgeon Focuses on Medically Ready Force

11/09/2020
The Deployment Health Assessment Program (DHAP) and the U.S. Army Reserve Command welcomed its newest command surgeon, Col. Kathleen M. Flocke, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “I’m excited to work with the Army Reserves and ensure that we provide … the medically ready force that the Army needs to fight and win on the battlefield of the future,” said Flocke. The Command Surgeon has mission command over the DHAP team.

R2 Performance Centers Look to Strengthen Overall Health of Soldiers

11/05/2020
From individual Soldiers to entire units, Ready & Resilient Performance Centers, or R2PCs, are at the ready for Soldiers by providing specialized training to help sustain personal readiness, enhance resilience, optimize human performance, and build unit cohesion. Their mission is part of the Army’s new health approach to overall readiness, said Casey Olson, Chief of Training for the Army Resilience Directorate. In the last 10 years, more than 30 performance centers across the Army have equipped upwards of 49,000 master resilience trainers, or MRTs, with tools needed to conduct resilience training at the unit level, and serve as advisers to commanders.

SAPRO Director Pledges 'Zero Tolerance' for Sexual Assault, Harassment

11/04/2020
The new director of the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), Army Maj. Gen. Clement S. Coward, hit the ground running after being in the field and hearing firsthand Service Members' concerns about sexual harassment and sexual assault. “Ensuring we have a ready force capable of high-level performance is my top priority. However, that can only come with treating all who serve with dignity and respect," Coward said. "Every Service Member must be able to trust that unit commanders' and leadership's response to sexual assault and harassment occurs with "zero-defects" — we must get this right, every time."

New Tool Aims to Enable Commanders to Track, Prevent High-Risk Behaviors

11/03/2020
As part of the Army’s effort in placing greater emphasis on its people, Active Duty command teams now have a new tool to help give them more visibility on Soldiers who exhibit high-risk behaviors, The Commander’s Risk Reduction Toolkit (CRRT), is a web-based system that helps command teams from the company through the corps level assess unit readiness with reports on drug and alcohol use, criminal history, and death by suicide. It also supplements the command teams’ ability to develop a consolidated overview of risk history and unit trends while allowing them to develop strategies to strengthen units, said Randy Lane, Chief of the Army Resilience Directorate’s Assessments Division.