Every seat was filled in the classroom, everyone listening intently to the personal experience that was unfolding from the instructor at the head of the classroom. All the students were engaged in learning how to mitigate risks and learn how to develop more resilient Soldiers and Families.
Recently, more than 100 Soldiers and Army civilians were certified as Master Resilience Trainers on Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, January 2014. The two-week Master Resilience Trainer (MRT) course is part of the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program, which is designed to address the challenges with multiple deployments and provide preventive measures and skills to help Soldiers, Families and Army Civilians better cope with adversity and bounce back stronger from these challenges.
The course focuses on the 14 skills to develop six competencies to foster individual resilience and raise performance.
"The 14 skills are based to enhance and build on the six competences of the program," said Katie Copeskey, lead Master Resilience Trainer-Performance Expert at the Schofield Barracks CSF2 Training Center.
"The training equips people with the various tools to enable resilience and then they become responsible for teaching those skill and techniques to their units."
The six resilience competencies outlined by the program are self-awareness, self-regulation, optimism, mental agility, strengths of character and connection and are the building blocks of improving resilience within one's self.
"The training makes you turn yourself inside out, and learn more about yourself, and how to work on yourself and become more effective and helpful to others," said Ferne Conrow, an Army Community Service specialist at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
The training conducted during the first week is learning the skills and techniques used in the program. Students break down into smaller groups to incorporate the training into real-life scenarios to better understand how people think and act during stressful situations. The real-life scenarios are based on experiences that students and instructors bring to the classroom, allowing for the students to reflect what happened and how to change their process of thinking, to help control the reactions to situations.
"I found out this morning that my close family member died, and if I had not had this training, I would have responded differently, it would have been much harder for me to handle the death, but I learned to look for the good stuff in the negative, which is one of the skills taught," said Ferne. "The training helps you break the problem down and how to move on. I know that I am stronger because of this training."
One of the skills taught during the class is the activating event, thoughts and consequences: emotions and reactions, also known as the ATC module. This module teaches how to identify your thoughts about an activating event and the consequences of those thoughts. It is one of the main skills that tie in with the other 13 skills taught.
"One of the best things about this course was the module of 'Hunt the Good Stuff"", said Staff Sgt. Cory Walter, scout section leader, 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. "We always tend to be negative when something bad happens, but learning how to focus on the good stuff that happens everyday, helps to balance the negativity, and create a positive emotion or feeling about yourself."
"MRT changed my life 10 years ago, and this class has given me the skills to do this for other people," said Capt. Scott Julich, commander, C Co. 209th Aviation Support Battalion, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Inf. Div.
The goal of the program is to have one certified MRT at the company level to ensure that the full impact of this training reaches all Soldiers, said Maj. Christopher Haynes, installation program manager, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 25th Inf. Div.
For more information about the CSF2 program, visit http://csf2.army.mil
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