Kadena Integrated Delivery System to use incentive program to promote resiliency

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Maeson L. Elleman
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  The Integrated Delivery System here, a program linked by all helping agencies on base including the chapels, mental health and Airman and Family Readiness Center, is set to unveil a new plan for augmenting Airmen's resiliency in February 2012.

Unlike the general mindset of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it," this program will be set forth in order to promote a proactive, rather than reactive approach to comprehensive fitness by setting up an incentive plan for those who attend.

"We're building an incentive program so that if you go to so many classes, you can get recognition at the squadron level, if you go to so many more, the group level, and if you go to a lot of them, then you can get recognition at the wing level," said Maj. Kathleen Crimmins, 18th Medical Operations Squadron's Mental Health Flight commander and IDS chairperson. "These are the type of classes that are going to help teach people skills in how to be resilient - stress management, parenting classes, mentoring and how to be a supervisor."

The new plan is based on the four pillars of fitness - mental, social, physical and spiritual.

After receiving responses in October from the Community Needs Assessment that began in January, Crimmins said IDS will focus on three main areas - family and relationships, personal resiliency, and occupational and leadership to "strengthen and sustain a culture of balanced, healthy, self confident Airmen and [military] families."

Crimmins also said by catching potential situations before they get out of control, not only could it save the victims from a bad situation, it could save a lot of time and money.

"Research across the board in every helping agency shows us if we catch the problems when they're small, they don't impact the person as badly, don't impact their families as badly, or the mission," said Crimmins. "Let's say somebody's having marital problems, they have a domestic violence incident, and it has to go to family advocacy. From the minute that domestic violence incident starts to the minute when family advocacy's closed the case, [it's been] at least 80 hours and probably about eight different helping agencies. These classes only take up a few hours of one person's time or a couple's time."

While a lot of the classes such as anger management, Dad's 101 and financial management courses that the program will offer are already hosted by the Airman and Family Readiness Center as well as several other organizations on base, Crimmins said the program will put additional effort into moving the classes away from Mental Health and the chapels to promote more attendance.

"We have a lot of these things on base that people really aren't aware of, and we've done kind of a lot to advertise for them, but we're still not hitting people," explained Crimmins. "We figure if we make this the expected norm, that people are expected to go to these classes to build their knowledge base, you're going to be better able to help yourself and the person next to you. We give a description of the course and at the very end once they complete it, we'll give them a certificate."

Crimmins also said active duty service members can use the courses in Enlisted Performance Reviews.

"If you take these classes, you can use them on your EPR as self improvement, as base or community involvement type of issues," Crimmins said.
It will target not only junior enlisted, active duty airmen, but Airmen of all ranks, their spouses and even their kids.

"This isn't just for the active duty people," said Shirley Bratton, AFRC chief and Community Action Information Board executive director. "This is for spouses; this is for civilians and for kids."

"It doesn't make sense for us to just focus on just a small part of the population, because then we're only focusing on a part of the people who might be having the difficulty, and the Community Needs Assessment looked at active duty and their spouses," said Crimmins.

Courses for credit are scheduled to begin approximately Feb. 15, 2012.