Photo By Staff Sgt. Justin Smith | Overwatch Project actors perform for Soldiers during a suicide education session on...... read more read more
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FORT BLISS, Texas — The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division soldiers participated in a week-long suicide prevention training exercise conducted by the Overwatch Project from Sept. 4-6 at Fort Bliss.
The Overwatch Project is a peer intervention training and education program focused on firearms suicide prevention specifically tailored to a military and veteran audience. This program, modeled after the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk," focuses on proper gun use and suicide prevention.
Their training programs equip service members and veterans to intervene with at-risk friends and loved ones, asking them to hold onto their firearms temporarily or to take other protective storage measures to prevent suicide. The program also focuses on building proactive norms for firearms suicide prevention so that service members and veterans develop plans before a potential crisis.
"Our goal is to empower service members with peer intervention skills that we know save lives, and this scenario-based training allows soldiers not just to learn those skills but to practice them in real time," said Casey Woods, executive director of Overwatch Project / FORGE, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Over the last four months, the Overwatch Project has trained over 7,200 1st Armored Division soldiers through a III Armored Corps partnership.
Soldiers are divided into groups to participate in the training session, which takes around an hour and a half. In the first part, soldiers are educated about facts and statistics related to suicide and firearms.
"Suicide is often impulsive; half the people who attempt and survive said they thought about it for ten minutes or less," said Woods. "So having the people around equipped to ask those questions in critical moments is important."
Afterward, they observe and participate in several scenarios with professional actors, all former veterans. At certain points, the director pauses the scenario and asks the Soldiers in the audience for suggestions on what course of action they should take. The actors then use those suggestions to complete the scene.
The methodology of the training is a bit different from the standard format soldiers are used to. Soldiers are usually merely observers and can sometimes find it difficult to relate to the subject matter.
"It brought a unique and refreshing angle presenting realistic scenarios that could happen," said Spc. Wystan Winter, a combat medic with Chosin Company, 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st AD. “It felt worthwhile and relevant to real life, which I think is the most important part.”
Once the session is complete, participants fill out a short survey and are given items such as gun-safe magnets where their peers can put their contact info should they need to talk and t-shirts with the Overwatch Project slogan.
The 1st ABCT, 1st AD training week is part of a more extensive III Armored Corps partnership with the Overwatch Project, which has trained over 21,000 Soldiers in the past 12 months.
For more information about the Overwatch Project, visit overwatchproject.org.
| Date Taken: | 09.10.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 09.10.2024 17:41 |
| Story ID: | 480539 |
| Location: | FORT BLISS, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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