Operationally Resilient Culture

The Air Force is attempting to spread a “culture of resiliency” to the field to help combat airmen suicides, CMSAF James Roy told a Capitol Hill audience last week. Resiliency is the ability to endure and grow from a situation or problem, said Roy during his presentation sponsored by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies on April 5. Fostering a resilient culture has led to the development of Master Resiliency Training instruction, adapted from a similar Army effort, to help train specialists to work with airmen and help them deal with stress and challenges, such as deployments, relocation, family separation, and relationship troubles, said Roy. Already Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command have trained 100 MRT instructors, who will then pass along their skills as they visit airmen across the force, he said. These MRTs should be ready in mid April to go out to commands and visit wings as requested, said Roy. Air Force Special Operations Command is similarly working to strengthen resiliency by placing “operational psychologists” at the unit level. (For more from Roy’s presentation, read Life Matters.)