Marisa Alia-Novobilski
The Air Force Materiel Command held a readiness and resiliency-focused Spouse and Family Forum, Nov. 6, highlighting resources and initiatives to support uniformed and civilian family members.
The virtual event, hosted by Dede Richardson, spouse of Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, AFMC Commander, featured leadership teams and Commander’s Key Support Liaisons from across AFMC who talked about ongoing efforts to effectively support and connect family members in their communities. Helping agency representatives from the Chaplain Corps, First Sergeant, mental health and the Employee Assistance Program were also online to talk about programs of support.
“I hope today’s information is something that you can continue conversation on later, and that you’ll find ways that you can build community and build increased family readiness within your unit and community,” said Dede Richardson during opening remarks.
Throughout the event, panelists highlighted ways they have worked to establish strong support programs within their organizations and best practices for improving family member communication with both uniformed and civilian members of their communities. Challenges and stressors are often mutual, and finding ways to provide an effective support bridge is key.
“People are people. They often have the same stresses in life –the same job stresses, the same concerns about what might be happening with their children. This is a family business for us. It’s important to us to take care of all our members,” said Col. Michelle Artolachipe, deputy commander, Ogden Air Logistics Complex, Hill Air Force Base, who was joined by Lori Bell, OO-ALC Senior Spouse Mentor and Sara Pruit, the OO-ALC Commander’s Key Support Liaison.
The OO-ALC team emphasized the importance of leaders using their key support liaisons to learn about those things that might not be obvious in the workplace but are impacting communities and families.
“I’ve gotten to have my ear in on the situations that are coming up with our families and things that are going on within the installation. Some of the pain points and constraints are both at home and at work, and impact the mission,” said Pruit, both a CKSL and a civilian employee at the ALC. “The liaison opportunity allows me to go to leadership and say, ‘this is what our staff needs – here's how we can support them,’ or ‘do we need to bring additional resources in to be able to help them.’ The collaboration between the chain of command, up and down, is very helpful.”
Maj. Michael Bell, commander, 96th Maintenance Squadron, Eglin AFB, shared similar thoughts on the importance on connecting leaders with families and communities.
“Having families that are connected to your unit helps get you feedback and helps you censor information that can solve issues before they become problems and before you have somebody standing in your office for some kind of discipline matter or something that can permanently alter their life or career,” said Bell. “We firmly believe that we recruit Airmen, but we retain families, and here in the 96MXS, we've got 541 of them we all want to keep around. We're focused on getting families embedded into our organization and becoming a regular part of our Air Force life.”
While the early part of the forum focused on family communication and connection, the latter part focused on the additional helping agency resources available to support commanders, employees and families coping with challenges of everyday life. These helping agency resources play a key role in total force readiness.
“We will never turn somebody away when they're in need or when there's a request for assistance for anything,” said Chief Master Sgt. Joseph Joslin, representing the First Sergeants Council on the panel. “We are going to connect you to that care and try to make sure that you're connected to the right folks, whether it's on base or off base, depending on the situation and make sure you’re getting what you need in a timely manner.”
To view the full event and learn more about the resources shared during the forum, visit https://www.dvidshub.net/video/942935/strong-families-strong-force-afmc-spouse-and-family-forum.
To learn more about the AFMC Family Connection initiative and resources available to support family members of uniformed and civilian employees, download the USAF Connect app on Apple or Google Play and ‘favorite’ the Air Force Materiel Command channel. The ‘Family Connection’ icon contains information, resources, and more available to support family members across AFMC.
To provide feedback or connect with the AFMC Family Connection team, send an email to [email protected].