Photo By Staff Sgt. Erik Warren | Participants in the Pegasus (Ask, Care, Escort) training conducted by 3rd Cavalry...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas - Capt. Michael Brennan, 3rd Cavalry Regiment’s embedded behavioral health team psychologist, is changing the way his formation performs suicide prevention training.
Rather than conducting “death-by-PowerPoint” training, Brennan is getting Soldiers out of the classroom and conducting physical training, while delivering messages that raise awareness and promote intervention during a crisis.
“Thirty-one Soldiers have taken their own lives on Fort hood since 2011,” said Brennan. “Seven of them have been from our own regiment.”
Capt. Ashley Chaffin, 1st Cavalry Division psychologist, further detailed the troubling statistic.
“Younger NCOs make up a largely disproportionate portion of those suicides,” Chaffin said.
Chaffin assisted Brennan in training his own regiment and gave her full endorsement to execute the outside-the-classroom method of instruction.
“It is important that this training is not a check-the-block style of training,” said Chaffin.
Brennan also taught a train-the-trainer course, where he gathered platoon leaders and platoon sergeants from around the regiment to teach them how to instruct these classes.
This was the second part of the pilot program geared to make this practice the standard. While the Brave Rifles were in Afghanistan, Brennan personally managed the PT-based instruction on Forward Operating Bases Gamberi and Fenty earlier this year.
The training will consist of four stations where leaders will filter their Soldiers to different facilities in 3rd CR’s footprint that assist with behavioral health issues, including the Embedded Behavioral Health Clinic, the Military Family Life Consultant Office, the 3rd CR Chapel, and the Army Community Service Centers.
This way, all the troopers within the regiment will know where they can go for help, while leaders are free to choose how to integrate physical training within the lessons being taught, said Brennan.
“Connecting physical activity with the message we want to sink in will keep the attention of the Soldiers better than if we taught it in the classroom,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 09.17.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 10.16.2015 14:52 |
| Story ID: | 179116 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 45 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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