The Army is looking to improve the resiliency of its soldiers through a new program, said Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff. The new program is to be introduced at two bases in October and phased in gradually throughout the service.

The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program is designed to strengthen Soldiers emotionally, spiritually and socially, giving them the ability to cope with stress. Casey emphasized that the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program will be part of a Soldier’s training from Basic Training through War College.

“This will be instituted so that at every level of Army school - officer and non- commissioned officer - there will be a different level of resilience training taught,” he said. Casey said that the demands during war time make it a necessity for the Army to teach its soldiers adequate coping skills.

Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, director of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, said the program will prepare soldiers to deal with any situation. Resiliency should be automatic just like loading a weapon is automatic to a soldier, she said.

To find out where soldiers rank in terms of resiliency, the Army will launch a Global Assessment Tool, which Cornum compared to a “PT test for mental health.” The tool evaluates a Soldier’s social, emotional, family and spiritual strength. Results will be kept confidential and will not be available to anyone in the soldier’s chain of command. Active-duty soldiers, reservists and members of the National Guard will receive the training, which will also be available to their family members and to civilian employees.

For more information, click here and here.

Tags: Army, resiliency, Resiliency Training

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Active Duty, Families, National Guard, PTSD, Parents, Reserves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.