Fort Belvoir, Va. (March 13, 2014) - They are so many readiness and resilience programs on Fort Belvoir that it can be hard to keep track.
Fort Belvoir's recently established Community Health Promotion Council ensures that each program has maximum impact -- and doesn't compete with similar programs for the same audience.
The CHPC functions as the central hub for all of the programs that support the Army's Ready and Resilient Campaign, said Capt. Dennis Bernacki, Fort Belvoir deputy CHPC coordinator. This includes Master Resilience Training, suicide prevention, Fort Belvoir Community Hospital health fairs, Army Community Service classes, chaplaincy programs and USO events, among others.
"One of the big things we're doing is we developed a synchronization matrix for everybody to use," said Capt. Denny Bernacki, Fort Belvoir deputy CHPC coordinator.
The matrix helps spread out programs in a given month and keeps organizations aware of events happening elsewhere in the community, he said.
CHPC's mission statement is to "ensure the readiness and resilience of the community by synchronizing health and wellness programs for our active and reserve military members, civilian employees, retirees and Family members."
Programs within Fort Belvoir's Resilience Program fall into three categories: mind, body and spirit. The CHPC helps leaders of each program "synchronize" their efforts, Bernacki said.
"The synchronization piece amongst all the activities is a big one," he said. "There are a lot of great programs. By having this collective organization, where everybody sees what everybody else is doing through the CHPC, they'll know more about what's going on … instead of just all the great things they're doing in their organization."
In addition to helping organizations work together on post, the CHPC also helps Fort Belvoir organizations coordinate with other installations and jurisdictions.
At the CHPC quarterly council meeting Feb. 26 at the Kawamura Human Performance Center, representatives from the Military District of Washington and Fort A. P. Hill attended, in addition to Fort Belvoir garrison leaders and organizational commanders.
"Consolidation with A.P. Hill and other organizations is important because it's efficient," said Lt. Col. Brian P. Zarchin, U.S. Army Garrison Fort Belvoir Headquarters Battalion, commander. "In our resource constrained environment, we have to find creative and collaborative ways to accomplish various missions efficiently, the CHPC is no different."
Partnering with other installations supports them with programs and resources they may lack and that Fort Belvoir already has, Zarchin explained.
"We're required to have a quarterly council meeting, but what was nice about this one was the level of participation we had," Bernacki said. "This is still a relatively new program."
Partnership also brings Fort Belvoir closer to achieving the CHPC vision because it enhances synergy and builds a collaborative team-building environment of success, Zarchin added.
"Our vision is that of a synergized CHPC that prepares our garrison community mentally, physically and spiritually to meet tomorrow's challenges," he said. "Working with A.P. Hill and MDW only increases our chances of coming up with creative and effective solutions to increasing resilience across multiple installations."
Although it's still in the planning phases, the CHPC would like to start measuring the success of the readiness and resiliency programs, Bernacki said.
"We're trying to develop metrics to measure both the performance of individual activities but also the effectiveness," he said. "A big thing that we want to do too is identify any gaps in coverage for programs or any overlap."
For example, the council may decide to keep track of the number of people who attend suicide prevention activities, then measure increases or decreases in recorded suicidal ideations or gestures, he said.
"Moving forward, we can take the trend data and provide a better picture to the garrison commander," he added. "If we see a big increase in one area of concern, we're going to target more programs toward that collectively."
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