Blog Posts tagged with "Quality of Life"
What's your BHAG? and how the QoL conference tacked this and other questions
What’s your B.H.A.G.? What were our Big Hairy Audacious Goals? Did we define our B.H.A.Gs? Did we meet them?
After a fast-paced week of meetings and events, the 2011 EUCOM Quality of Life Conference wrapped up Thursday on a positive note. Several senior leaders on hand to hear the final briefs and recommendations of working group delegates. Thirty-five delegates representing all five component services and eleven Healthy Living Initiative stakeholders from agencies such as Chaplain Services, Department of Defense Dependent Schools-Europe (DoDDS-E), Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and the base and post exchanges, spent the week in deep and sometimes heated discussion on important issues involving the quality of life of our Service members and their families. The mission of the working groups was to look at current quality of life programs across the Department of Defense, identify redundancies and make informed recommendations to senior leadership which programs should be enhanced, sustained, and in some cases, discontinued.
Carrie Shult facilitates the Health of the Force and Family Working Group
Facilitator Carrie Shult led a lively and productive discussion about Healthy Lifestyles Initiatives in the Health of the Force and Family working group. They were charged to define the Healthy Lifestyles Initiative and provide a communication and marketing plan. They decided:
• “HLI is not a program;” It is a positive, collaborative campaign which markets through existing programs and partnerships.
• “HLI is not duplication;” It promotes and enhances existing programs.
During the conference, the group filmed several PSAs for healthy living, and wrote an additional PSA to be presented to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, for filming. The EUCOM Commander, Admiral Jim Stavridis, and his family have already endorsed the Healthy Living, Stronger Together Initiative and Logo through several public service announcements currently running on the Armed Forces Network.
Frank Battistelli and Brian Kirby facilitate a discussion
The remaining three working groups were at full throttle from conference start to finish. The Service and Family Member Working Group, facilitated by Frank Battistelli, represented a very diverse demographic population stationed across Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the UK. This group explored issues involving housing referrals and assignment processes, and expanding childcare services and counseling services to support family readiness.
The Remote and Outlier Working Group, facilitated by Eric Damm, drew individuals from locations ranging from Azerbaijan to Turkey and from military communities ranging in size from 4 to 4000. The group discussed programs such as the virtual High School, Army Spouse Employment Program, and the Spouse Fit for Life initiative, and found they have real potential to improve QoL for remote and outlying military communities.
The Single and Unaccompanied Service Member Working Group, facilitated by Sandra Schlosser tackled issues with inconsistencies across the services involving overcrowding and inadequate unaccompanied housing assignments.
Fleet Master Chief Roy Maddocks presents Lori Warchol with a EUCOM Senior Enlisted Leader coin for her role as Special Operations Command-Europe's action officer.
EUCOM’s Fleet Master Chief Roy Maddocks wrapped up the conference by thanking all the participants and presenting some with challenge coins – a true honor for those familitary with this military custom . In his closing remarks he pointed out that our most precious assets and valuable resources are our people. With all that is expected of our forces today, quality of life plays a vital role in our national security.
Maddocks reminded us of some of the successes from past quality of life conferenceslike the stigma attached to seeking mental healthcare which was addressed during the 2009 conference; top leadership recognized this as real problem affecting our service members and their families, and have made it a priority to remove the stigma and encourage members to seek the help they need.
Now that the conference has come to a close, we can reflect on what we have learned about quality of life. With all the budget constraints and across the board cuts, quality of life programs are in jeopardy of falling by the wayside, or becoming inadequate.
Dep. Asst. Sec. of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy, Mr. Robert L Gordon III’s question from the beginning of the conference was: What are our Big Hairy Audacious Goals? Our B.H.A.G. is to sutain and enhance our best quality of life programs through joint efforts and public and private sector partnerships. As far as meeting this goal, it is a continuing effort that starts with leadership, but involves us all.
Captain Deanna G. Goudeau
Air Force IMA
HQ EUCOM QoL Staff Support
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- Department of Defense Education Activity
- health
- initiatives
- Defense Commissary Agency
- Quality of Life
2011 EUCOM Quality of Life Conference Kicks Off
During his brief to conference delegates and attendees, Gordon, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, focused on four key priorities for support and care of military families, which can be found in Presidential Study Directive #9. The priorities include enhancing the overall well-being and psychological health of the military family; ensuring excellence in military children’s education and their development; developing career and educational opportunities for military spouses; and increasing childcare availability and quality for the Armed Forces.
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Quality of Life Conference 2010 – Our voices will be heard
When I was selected to participate in the Quality of Life Conference, I can honestly say I had no idea what to expect. After arriving here at the conference, I was very surprised at the relaxing, yet passionate atmosphere I experienced. I was placed in the Community Services I Group. My group was very energetic, enthusiastic and full of really great ideas. There were times of strong disagreements, but we were always able to come to a conclusion that was beneficial to all of EUCOM.
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Health of the Force – Day 3 of the QoL Conference
What should have been a pretty smooth morning, only turned upside down. My focus group, Health of the Force received shocking news that one of our top two topics to be address this afternoon, needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. It was back to the butcher board. Despite some remaining conflicting points of view, it was thanks to our groups amazing negotiating and team skills that we were able to revitalize the topic we felt most passionate about presenting. That is the beauty of being a part of this process. Despite the difference of views and opinion, the bottom line is we are here for the benefit of our community.
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Community Service II – Medical Screening
This is my first time attending a Quality of Life (QoL) Conference, but what an opportunity it has been for me. This conference has enabled me to express so many morale issues that affect my location. As a secondary effect, I was able to interact with members of other services and align my issues with these sister services to create a joint or “purple” problem.
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Real life issues addressed at the Quality of Life Conference
The life that a man or woman experiences while serving in the military is often one of sacrifice, hardship and honor. A normal day is often long and stressful. Families aren't perfect outside the military and they are no different inside except the normal stressors on a military family are extraordinary. Families break all the time. Some breaks are permanent, some temporary, some caused by the stressors of a military life. Now throw in deployments to overseas locations where families cope with strong cultural challenges, language barriers, and being a thousand miles from their own homeland. Now we have to throw 9 years of combat operations into the mix. Deployments mean more sacrifice, hardship and places fragile families in danger of breaking and solid families endure loneliness, depression and loss of intimacy.
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The Quality Of Life Conference comes to an end for 2010
Ok, for those of you who were paying attention and can count are probably thinking … if there were only 4 focus groups, how can there be a “Top 10." One can say a lot about the Texas educational system, but it did teach me that 4 times 2 does not equal 10. So the additional 2 issues came from The European Strategy Conference, which focuses on remote Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) areas, held last week in Ramstein, Germany.
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Thoughts on how to bring POWER forward
As a social worker, who has worked for so many years in the civilian sector, I am always amazed at how well the military tries to take care of its soldiers and families. If only the rest of the people in the U.S. had access to some of the wonderful programs designed to support and enhance families and their quality of life. I have been at the Quality of Life Conference here in Garmisch since Monday, and have been impressed and moved by the enthusiasm, true caring, and willingness to help that the military has for the people who dedicate their lives to our country.
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Quality of Life: A Purple Issue
Garmisch is known for its skiing and leisure options but little do most people know that in the lower conference rooms of the Edelweisse Lodge and Resort Quality of Life (QoL) issues are being battled out. I did not know what was in store for me when I was selected to attend the QoL 2010 conference. I knew the meaning of the term quality of life but I did not know how concerned military officials were with it. Much to my amazement, military officials seriously care about issues affecting our service members and their families.
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Community Service II – Day 3 – Quality of Life Conference
As we worked through the descriptions of the mentioned problem, the active duty members and spouses in our group stepped into situations that none of us want to face. The curtain that is always present was pulled away as we thought about and discussed what our service members and their families (spouses, next of kin, etc) go through, emotionally and mentally, during times of great loss.
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Youth Teen and Dependent Education – Day 2
As a group we collectively created a program to eliminate the adult ‘middle man’ process resulting in what we are interested in being expressed. This program, if allotted the five year requested trial program, is expected by the young adult delegates to directly reduce the amount of at-risk behavior.
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Health of the Force
Commencing early this morning, our focus group quickly began working together to further deepen what issues we were attempting to address. By discussing amongst ourselves details such as Describe the Problem; what is the desired outcome; stating the Recommendation for achieving desired outcome; stating the Limitations to carry out recommendations or achieving desired outcome. As with any discussion, questions did come up amongst group members. Even small disagreements as to, were our top issues necessarily the most important to address.
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P.O.W.E.R. at the EUCOM QOL Conference
I am here not as a delegate, not as an observer or even as a Subject Matter Expert, aka the SME… but here because I belong to the P.O.W.E.R. Group – a program that was put into place based on the needs expressed from attendees at conferences just like this!
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Quality of Life Conference winds down
The four focus groups, Health of the Force, Community Service I and II, and the Youth/Teen Dependent Education, have worked hard for the last four days. It has been an interesting experience for me. I have had an opportunity to sit in on a couple of the focus groups and on every occasion everyone was highly engaged in the discussions and very passionate about every issue.
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Quality Of Life Conference: Day One
After the video, the Chief of Staff for EUCOM, Army Maj. Gen. John Morgan provided the opening remarks welcoming everyone to the conference…and so it began.
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Teenagers at the Quality of Life Conference
Hi I’m Brannon Niblock and I am a first timer at the QoL Conference in Garmish. As a Teen Representative from MARFOREUR I am a part of the Youth Delegate Crew.
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Day 1: Community Service Issues and Top 10
Day one of the quality of life conference went pretty much how I thought it would. An array of issues and excellent observations from large instillations to small were discussed. I was impressed with everyone’s issues and participation; it made the day fly by.
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Health of the Force Focus Group at the Quality of Life Conference
Well, I have to say “Welcome" to everyone attending this year’s Quality of Life Conference. I have been in Germany for all of four months and thrilled to be here in the beautiful city of Garmisch. As a new Delegate for the Ansbach community, being a part of EUCOM’s mission for Quality of Life has turned out to be quite an experience.
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Community Services II Focus Group at the Quality of Life Conference
Grüss Gott from Edelweiss Lodge in the picturesque Bavarian town of Garmisch, Germany. My name is Thomas and I have the wonderful and unique privilege to represent my fellow Airmen and service members at the EUCOM Quality of Life conference. The overarching mission of the conference is to identify “purple” issues, or those who affect the entire European theater for all service members and their families. All delegates have converged here after soliciting and compiling inputs from our local environments in order to elevate the most pertinent concerns.
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EUCOM Quality of Life Conference starts
I was at EUCOM for about two months when I heard of a section within EUCOM called Quality of Life (QoL). Now I have to admit, when I first heard of the QoL section, I had no idea what they did let alone what their mission at EUCOM was. In my many years of being in the Army, I have never heard of a section within a command whose main function was improving the quality of life for its military and family members.Obviously, I had a few questions…what do they do and more importantly, what happens at these conferences? Quite frankly, what is Quality of Life?
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Patch Barracks, Earth Day 2009
The United States Army Garrison--Stuttgart motto is a good one and says a lot about our community. The Garrison leadership's goal is to have people say "I'm glad I live here." Stuttgart is a wonderful city, and the USAG Stuttgart is a fantastic place to live and serve.
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Leaders are Champions for the QoL Cause
When General Craddock hired me as EUCOM Senior Enlisted Leader three years ago, he laid out four priorities for me. One of them was quality of life for Service members and their Families. A couple years ago at the December 2006 QoL conference, I spoke to the delegates and laid out what I foresaw to be our greatest quality of life challenges. A lot has happened since 2006. As co-chairman of the EUCOM Quality of Life Executive Steering Committee, I’ve seen tremendous diligence as we address issues brought to us from the conferences and resolve them through the QoL Action Plan.
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Programs to Support Soldiers and Families Affected by Current Housing Market
A message on the HAP's website states, "The President signed the American Economic Recovery Act which included expansion of the HAP authority. HAP is a Department of Defense (DoD) program, and they will establish policy guidance on applicant processing and benefits. Until that time, potential applicants may submit applications to appropriate HAP districts; however, no action will be taken on the applications until any change to the HAP authority has been enacted and DOD guidance is received."
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Delegates Present Issues for Commander's Consideration
Our fifth Quailty of Life Conference since 2004 is coming to a close. The conference culminated with five delegate spokespersons briefing their group's top issues to the EUCOM Commander, component commanders, Senior Enlisted Leaders, Senior Spouses, and conference participants. Below are the issues brought forward by the focus groups:
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DeCA Europe attends and supports quality of life conference
DeCA Europe Director, Thomas Milks, his wife Mary, and members of his staff attended this terrific conference this week. We are all grateful for the opportunity to meet and share with many of you in order to obtain a greater understanding of what is important to your life in the military. Many of you expressed great satisfaction with our stores and those of you who had issues provided excellent insight to areas where we need to take a closer look. The many employees of DeCA Europe are here to serve you and your families. We strive to make sure your commissary is always worth the trip! Keep up with your commissary benefit on www.commissaries.com. We hope to see you all next year...or even sooner at the May 09 AWAG conference here in beautiful Garmisch.
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Senior Spouse Briefings
We were fortunate this morning to have the opportunity to meet with Ms. Miles, director of DoDEA. She answered many of our questions concerning the changes and assessments they are working on with our schools. We all feel that DoDEA is on its way to being a better place for our children to learn, no matter the location of the school. Our day continued with informative meetings from the USO, and DECA. After a working lunch where we were informed and entertained by Chris Underwood, as he spoke about the Diversity of the Generations in the Work Force, we reconvened and learned more about
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The Value of a Military Experience
This has been a true and honest opportunity to express & share past experiences throughout the military. These good and bad experiences have been heard and considered for the future we hold within ourselves. These experiences may not be taken into action overnight, but someday we will see it happen.
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My voice counts
When I first came to the conference I wasn't sure what to expect. But each passing day provided me with the knowledge that I represent thousands in my position. That my opinions, and experiences were a vital part of making this conference work. So I asked myself if not me then who?
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More Teen Progress
Today we received our final feedback, since today was our last working day we had to finish up refining and work on our representative's speech for the out brief tomorrow.
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Quality of Life Steering Committee Engages DoD Leaders
On Tuesday, members of the EUCOM Quality of Life Executive Steering Committee (ESC) met with senior Department of Defense officials. The QoL ESC is a body of leaders that govern the Quality of Life Action Plan. Members include the Directors of Personnel and the Senior Enlisted Leaders from EUCOM and each of the service component commands in Europe. The QoL Conference give members of the ESC the unique opportunity to engage with senior DoD officials and carry the command's QoL message to the Pentagon.
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Day 2 Recap: Speakers, Focus Groups fill the day
European Command continued the Quality of Life Conference Monday, March 9. Speakers included Dr. Shirley Miles, Director, Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA); Mr. Sam Retherford, representative from Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy and Jacey Eckhart, a motivational speaker, syndicated militarycolumnist, and author of "The Homefront Club."
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Teens Share Their Voices to Advance Youth/Teen Issues
For the first time, this year's Quality of Life Conference has a focus group dedicated to teens. Ten teenage students from throughout Europe are digging in to represent the youth voice at the conference. Last year, two teenagers participated in a focus group made up primarily of adults. Their performance was so stellar, one of the teens, Victoria Rivera, was selected by her focus group to be the spokesperson during the outbrief to the EUCOM Deputy Commander. Their contribution inspired planners to have a focus group solely for teens.
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Provide Input and Issues
Single service members send us your thoughts.
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EUCOM Commander's Quality of Life Priorities
The 2009 EUCOM Quality of Life Priorities are:- Predictable Access to Mental and Physical Healthcare- Quality of Life Military Construction (incl. schools) and Funding- Adequate Housing and Full Dependent Education Support- Support for Child, Youth and Teen Programs- Deployment and Counsling Support for Servicemembers and Families- Advocacy for Servicemember Benefits and Entitlements
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2009 EUCOM Quality of Life Conference
The U.S. European Command is gearing up for its fifth annual Quality of Life Conference March 8-12, 2009, in Garmisch, Germany. Grassroots representatives from throughout the command will gather to share their concerns about subjects such as housing childcare deployment support services Wounded Warrior Care issues facing teenagers and much more. During the conference the 60 delegates will have opportunities to interact with senior EUCOM leaders Component Command leadership and Department of Defense officials.
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What does Social Networking have to do with Quality of Life?
Next week, U.S. European Command will host its annual Quality of Life Conference in Garmisch, Germany.
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EUCOM Commander hosts town hall meeting
It's refreshing to be assured by the EUCOM commander, Army Gen. John Craddock, that quality of life issues for members of the EUCOM community are being noticed and he is working with his staff to find the right answers. GEN Craddock has a very distinguished 38-year record and when he says he's going to work an issue, I for one, am compelled to believe him. The GEN has spent countless hours working on ways to improve the quality of life for service members, family members, DoD civilianns, and contractors who live here in Stuttgart.
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