FORT BRAGG, N.C. (May 28, 2014) -- Staff Sgt. Zackary and Staff Sgt.
Jessica Crum are using the resilience and performance skills they
learned in training to build a community of trust at work in the Fort
Bragg Warrior Transition Battalion, and also at home.
The Crums not only serve as cadre members together as part of the Fort
Bragg Warrior Transition Battalion, but they are also certified Master
Resilience Trainers and spouses. They are both Army Reservists, who met
in 2010, married, and moved to the Fort Bragg community, in 2012. Soon
after, they went through the intensive 10-day course that certifies
Soldiers as Master Resilience Trainers, or MRTs.
They now manage the Fort Bragg Warrior Transition Battalion's resilience
program, and are seeing first-hand how effective the skills they
learned during the MRT course can be for wounded warriors.
"With wounded warriors, when they come to trust you is when you can
really help them, and the resilience and performance skills I learned in
[the MRT course] directly help us to establish that trust," said
Zackary Crum.
The Master Resilience Trainer course certifies Soldiers, Army spouses
(statutory volunteers) and Army civilians to conduct formal resilience
training to members of the total Army. Part of the Army's Comprehensive
Soldier and Family Fitness program, this train-the-trainer course
teaches 12 resilience skills and two performance skills, all meant to
improve the overall health and resilience of those who serve and their
families.
Resilience skills like Effective Praise and Active Constructive
Responding seem to establish that foundation of trust from the
beginning, Zackary Crum believes.
"By moving on to skills such as Effective Praise and Active Constructive
Responding, we start to learn what's going on in their lives and trust
gets established," he said. "They let us know everything, and come to us
for help and advice at that point. These relationships often last well
beyond their stay at the [warrior transition battalion]. I'll get calls
from Soldiers I had over a year ago."
The Soldiers in the care of the Crums suffer a wide variety of wounds,
from multiple amputees, broken bones, shrapnel and burns to
post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety and
depression.
"There's no pattern to who will be resilient and who won't based on
their wounds," explained Jessica Crum. "We had an amputee with one arm
who used his 30-day convalescence leave to re-tile his entire kitchen
floor, and we had a Soldier with a broken tibia who just wasn't
responsive to anything we had to offer."
Goal Setting, a performance skill, helps Soldiers develop a concrete,
step-by-step plan for achieving a personally meaningful goal and
maintaining the motivation necessary to be successful. This skill is
especially critical to Wounded Warriors who may be unsure of what their
future holds, both personally and professionally.
"They never imagined they would be there, neither did their families, so
they often come in with a very negative attitude. Where you really see
[the change] is in Goal Setting," said Zackary Crum. "It's a performance
skill that helps us go over their goals with them. If they take it
seriously, they can come out of the [warrior transition battalion] with
technical certificates and jobs. For example, one of my Soldiers now
owns three businesses."
The Crums recognize the value of these skills in their personal lives, as well.
"The skills have also helped [Zackary] to bond with my 8-year-old
daughter from a previous marriage," Jessica Crum said. "He was not used
to dealing with children."
Zackary Crum credits the MRT course for helping him realize he needed to improve his communication with his step-daughter.
"After taking the MRT course, I realized that I was getting too easily
irritated around my step-daughter," he explained. "I was often short
with her, so I used the resilience skill of recognizing Activating
Events, Thoughts and Consequences, a skill that helps you identify your
thoughts about an activating event and the consequences to those
thoughts. This skill helped me develop the self-awareness and
self-regulation I needed to change this pattern. I saw an improvement in
our relationship very quickly after that."
Both Zackary and Jessica Crum agree that anyone can benefit from the
skills, and that it is most important to put the skills into action on a
daily basis. They live the skills they were taught, and have seen an
impact on their careers and within their family, and hope those they are
passing the skills on to will experience the same.
For more information about the U.S. Army Warrior Transition Command, visit http://wtc.army.mil.
For more information about the U.S. Army's Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program, visit http://csf2.army.mil.
Retrieved on 28 May 2014
http://www.army.mil/article/126727/Married_couple__WTB_cadre_use_resilience__performance_skills_to_earn_trust_of_wounded_warriors/
Written by
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness
