'The Turning Point': Family Advocacy offers resiliency building classes

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Rachel Waller
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Airmen and their families constantly face stress from a variety of causes such as deployments, high operations tempos, and family, martial and personal life issues.

But despite the stressors, Airmen, their spouses and dependents must be resilient.

Have they finally reached   The Turning Point.

Resilience is defined be the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

To help members stay resilient, the 48th Medical Group Family Advocacy Airmen offer many classes and programs to help battle stressors.

"We are here to reduce stress for active duty members," said Marie Moore, family advocacy outreach manager.

Family Advocacy offers various resiliency classes every three months through the RAF Lakenheath Professional Development Center and are open to all Airmen and their families from RAF Mildenhall, RAF Lakenheath and RAF Feltwell.

One of the classes offered, addresses stress and anger management.

Mark Albrecht, family advocacy outreach manager, explained the stress portion of the class is about being proactive rather than waiting to get to a stressful place.

"It's managing stress with relaxation techniques to include muscle relaxation, deep breathing, self talk and thought process," he said.

Albrecht said the anger management portion of the class is about monitoring one's anger and creating an anger management plan on ways to de-escalate situations when angered.

Family Advocacy also offers Marriage Lasting Intimacy through Nurturing Knowledge and Skills or LINKS.

"John Van Epp, the author of the material, identifies five areas that bond parts of the marriage together," said Albrecht. "The areas combine to build a strong resilient
marriage."

The LINKS class helps individuals identify how they are doing in terms of their relationship as it grows and changes, said Albrecht.

Upon request from representatives from squadrons, family advocacy also offers Pick-a-Partner, a class for single Airmen.

"Basically, it's relationship education for singles," said Moore. "'Pick' talks about all aspects of entering into a relationship, and it explores everything about being in a relationship."

A parenting class called Love and Logic is also offered through family advocacy at the PDC.

"It helps parents avoid power struggles and helps kids overall by giving them opportunities to make decisions through choices that their parents give," said Albrecht.

"We recommend parents with children older than three attend the class, because for children younger than three, the principles are hard to implement with them," said Moore.

For parents with children under the age of three, family advocacy offers the New Parent Support Group.

"The NPSG has two nurses that provide home visits to parents who have children three and younger," she said. "They cover things like nutrition, discipline, routines and anything else new parents need assistance with on a one-to-one basis in their home."

In addition to the home visits, the NPSG also hosts Dads' Class.

"The class is taught by a volunteer dad for other dads, and it covers things from how to get the bath temperature right to changing a nappy (diaper)," said Moore.

On occasion, if particular squadron personnel appear stressed, the squadron commander or the first sergeant can request the family advocacy outreach managers visit the squadron. During the site visit, the outreach managers can develop a specialized class for the squadron to help battle the stressful factors.

For more information about family advocacy services, contact the Family Advocacy Office at DSN 226-8070 or commercial at 01368-528070. To register for a class through the PDC, contact Master Sgt. Jener Tiongson at DSN 238-5933 or commercial at 01638-545933.

Editor's note: The Turning Point is a recurring series which will culminate later this summer. Look for The Turning Point on www.mildenhall.af.mil and www.facebook.com/RAFMildenhall .