Photo By Staff Sgt. Anthony Hyatt | U.S. Air Force Maj. Lauren Beers, 25th Intelligence Squadron Airman Resiliency Team...... read more read more
One Airman from the 363d Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing recently had the opportunity to brief U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, commander of Air Combat Command, during the 2022 Sword Athena out-brief.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Lauren Beers, a physical therapist with the 25th Intelligence Squadron Airman Resilience Team at Hurlburt Field, Fla., has been serving as the 363d Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing Sword Athena representative.
“As the 363 ISRW Sword Athena representative, I have had the amazing opportunity to work with Airmen from across ACC in an attempt to tackle some tough issues that affect our families every day.," Beers said.
Sword Athena is designed to diminish barriers to readiness for women in service and improve the livelihood of military families.
Beers recently returned from the Sword Athena topic development workshop that took place March 28-April 1, 2022 at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., where she was able to network with volunteers across ACC to identify and resolve solutions to female- and family-centric barriers to readiness. The workshop also included the “Athena Arena,” which is a group of Sword Athena alumni and ACC directorate staff, who provided feedback on action plans.
During the out-brief with General Kelly last week, Beers had the opportunity to brief about the pregnancy profile, which was a line of effort briefed at the 2020 Sword Athena, but lost traction during the COVID pandemic.
“The profile for pregnancy is the only profile that states the medical condition throughout its narrative and then, like other profiles, is distributed to the unit’s ASIMS distro list. In some cases, this is a fairly long list,” said Beers. “As a result, many women are delaying prenatal care in effort to protect their privacy and, in some cases, their careers.”
Beers and the Pregnancy Mission Area Working Group (MAWG) believe there is a way to provide the necessary protections to the mother and baby through the AF Form 469, while also protecting the family’s privacy.
“I have seen the most meaningful advancements in women’s and family issues over the last six, largely due to the outstanding work of the Women’s Initiative Team and SWORD Athena,” Beers said. “I personally benefited from the updates to postpartum deployment restrictions, fitness testing, and caregiver leave and I am beyond grateful for the opportunities those changes provided my family. I was excited for an opportunity to share my insight into continued progress with respect to postpartum physical and mental health as well as childcare and family planning.”
While she’s not tackling female- and family-centric barriers, Beers is providing physical therapy support to the 25th Intelligence Squadron.
“We strive to maximize the human weapon system through rehabilitation, prevention, and performance training,” Beers said. “In addition to working with our personnel that need injury rehabilitation, we help conduct pre-deployment and post-deployment events as well as professional development events for our unit.”
For more information on the out-brief, please read the ACC article “ACC Commander greenlights Sword Athena pilot Child Development Center app" at https://www.acc.af.mil/News/Article/3008341/acc-commander-greenlights-sword-athena-pilot-child-development-center-app/.
| Date Taken: | 04.28.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 04.28.2022 09:29 |
| Story ID: | 419513 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 110 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 363 ISRW Airman helps identify, resolve problems during ACC Sword Athena, by TSgt Anthony Hyatt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
