Having Trouble Adjusting To Home Life?
afterdeployment.org Launches Enhanced Website
March 5th marked a major refresh of afterdeployment.org. While the site’s essential mission to offer web-based tools targeting behavioral health issues remains the same, the site’s re-engineered architecture and content management technologies deliver wide-ranging content from diverse sources, all within a common user experience. A learning management system integrated into the new site supports the delivery of eLearning assessments and workshops that facilitate self-paced learning and behavior-change strategies.
“The need for online behavioral health tools, available 24/7 and accessible in the comfort of one’s home, has never been greater,” says Dr. Robert Ciulla, leader of the afterdeployment.org project and acting Division Chief for Population and Prevention Programs at the National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2).
The new site, focused on the needs of the entire military community, showcases expanded content, easily accessed connections to real-time support, quick health tips, a ‘geolocator’ to find local providers, and updated graphics with banner links to core resources such as the Real Warriors Campaign.
The website will now offer continually refreshed material (health tips, daily quotes, and brain teasers); RSS feeds, podcasts, and links to Facebook and Twitter.
Added Content, More Topics
“Following a deployment, challenges commonly faced by service members and their families include relationship issues, sleep problems, and heightened stress,” says Ciulla. He added, “We’re bringing new content on board, expanding from twelve core modules to eighteen.”
In addition to topics on post-traumatic stress, depression, anger, sleep, relationships, substance abuse, physical injury, work adjustment, life stress, health and wellness, families with kids, and spirituality, the six new topics will address mild traumatic brain injury, tobacco, anxiety, military sexual trauma, stigma and resilience. New topics will be rolled out one by one over the coming weeks. Facebook and Twitter will be used to announce availability of new topic content.
Each topic has a self-assessment, self-paced workshops, videos, and an eLibrary. All topics are easily accessed from the home page allowing users to link up to a vast matrix of expert information and other resources. In a next iteration, coming soon, users will be able to connect via forums and blogs.
Project Team
To fulfill its mission, the afterdeployment.org project team continues to work with subject matter experts through partnerships among the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE), the Military Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Center for PTSD, and various academic institutions.
“The website will make wellness resources for the military community both more attractive and accessible to a global audience of all ages and backgrounds,” says afterdeployment.org’s functional director, Dr. Jennifer Alford. She added that visitors to the site will discover they are not alone, but in fact, face issues similar to many others.
Help Has Arrived
If you or someone you know is having trouble adjusting to home life, get help. Seeking solutions is a sign of strength.
Launched in August 2008, afterdeployment.org provides the military community with self-care tools for a range of adjustment concerns, with an emphasis on exercise-based interactivity, community support, and multimedia applications. Afterdeployment.org is a Department of Defense website developed by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology (T2), a component center of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE).