Moody address CFP input

Published Oct. 3, 2012
By Airman 1st Class Jarrod Grammel
23d Wing Public Affairs

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- More than four months after the May, 3 Caring for People Forum, agencies around Moody have been working together to address and resolve many of the issues brought up in the Forum.

The Caring for People forum gives Moody members a chance to voice their opinions on family support, deployment support, schools, special needs support, housing, health and wellness, and spouse communications.

"The idea behind Caring for People is that it allows open discussion on certain focus areas," said U.S. Air Force Capt. Zach Garrett, 23d Aerospace Medicine Squadron human performance flight commander. "It's a discussion group where they can vet their concerns. It takes place in the morning and by the afternoon it's being briefed to the wing commander.

"It comes directly from individuals with concerns and goes straight to the wing commander," he added. "It allows us to take community issues straight to him and get his input."

After the Integrated Delivery System (IDS) briefs the wing commander, IDS works with different support agencies to resolve issues. One of this year's new programs that was started as a result of Caring for People was Air Force 101: Tools for Success.

"Caring for People helped point the IDS in new a direction by consolidating some of the available services into the new Air Force 101: Tools for Success seminar launched this summer," said Ann Lukens, Moody AFB school liaison officer. "This seminar allows both active-duty Airmen and spouses to attend a five-hour program that introduces them to several of the existing IDS programs while encouraging them to attend more in-depth training if needed in the future."

Some of the changes and improvements addressed as a result of this year's forum include:

· Increased support for the installation Key Spouse Program with greater emphasis on regularly-scheduled training and updated email directories.

· More attention is being paid to creating a single, standardized pre-deployment checklist.

· The order of "Right Start" briefings were rearranged so that families with children would not be subjected to material content that might be inappropriate for children.

· The resources that dieticians can bring to individual and family well-being is being emphasized more by the HAWC.

· Unit leadership was asked to pay more attention to: the quality of those selected as sponsors to provide a better first experience for base newcomers, single personnel are given equal time to spend with their families during the holidays, family support is more standardized across the Wings and that dorm rooms belonging to single deployed personnel are secure.

· Attention be paid to traffic slow-downs during busy morning and afternoon periods

· Local school district leadership was provided with actual feedback about class sizes, school environment, parent access to teachers and staff and how local school rules intended to combat tardiness and truancy actually increase stress among military families.

Although Team Moody takes steps to address all issues brought up during the Caring for People Forum, some things can't be changed.

"There are some aspects of military life that cannot be changed such as operations tempo resulting in frequent and long family separations, regulations directing single personnel to reside in dormitories and to eat in dining facilities, less than attractive locations of installations, chronic under-employment of spouses, varied levels of quality/excellence in civilian communities and schools, and PCS moves," said Lukens.

However, Lukens and Garret agree that quality of life is important for service members and families. The annual forum has one objective, which is to use honest, open feedback to improve the quality of life of service members and families.

"Quality of life is important because it deals with stress management," said Garret. "There is only so much each individual can handle. Caring for People demonstrates that we may not be able to immediately resolve your issue, but we do what we can to address it. The military does care, but there are some constraints."