Army officials want their Soldiers, Civilians, Families and Retirees to be aware of a new product that allows individuals to see what resources are available to them.
Forty-eight Army installations across the globe have launched Community Resource Guides (CRGs) that provide a comprehensive inventory of programs and services across medical, mission and garrison activities.
"Army commanders increasingly recognize that Soldiers, Civilians and Families need help identifying support services that meet their individual needs. CRGs are tools for accessing and coordinating the programs that promote health and strengthen physical, mental and spiritual resilience," said Anna Courie, health promotion policy and evaluation project officer at the Army Public Health Center.
Each guide contains a list of support programs for a particular military community organized in three ways -- alphabetically, by agency, and by topic to help community members easily find services they need. The CRG is also searchable with more than 7,500 resources across the Army consolidated into an interactive, web-based and mobile-friendly application. Each Army installation's website displays a CRG button to serve as a shortcut to their individual CRG.
"CRGs provide 'one-stop shopping' for Soldiers, Civilians and Family members, as well as a comprehensive program resource for the senior commander, leaders and service providers on Army installations" said Courie. "They support the Army's goals of synchronizing programs to improve the readiness and resilience of Army community members, and they empower our Army family. With an enterprise approach to the CRG, every Soldier, Family Member, Civilian and Retiree has access to the same information, in the same way across the Army."
In addition to helping installation community members locate services, the guides increase the awareness of installation leaders and service providers about what services their communities offer. They also provide a comprehensive referral tool for service providers who may identify additional needs when working with a Soldier or family member. Compiling the guides helps identify services that are absent in the community but might be needed.
"These CRGs were developed in coordination with community health promotion councils and health promotion officers," said Courie. "One of the goals of the Army is to synchronize and communicate programs that help Soldiers, Civilians and Families overcome, and even thrive under, the stresses of Army life."
The CRG application provides tools to inventory programs at individual installations to ensure that services are responsive to local needs. It also collects information on how the application is used by beneficiaries in order to make it more useful over time. Although the CRGs are relatively new, Courie says that more CRGs will be developed as senior commanders add content managers to their staffs to provide the support in consolidating the resource data into the CRG application.
"As the CRG develops analytics on user behaviors, search functions and cyclical patterns will be provided to the installations in order to focus community education on frequently requested programs and services," said Courie.
For more information on community resource guides, visit: https://crg.amedd.army.mil
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