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FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Who can Families call when the water heater breaks and their Soldier is deployed? They can call Fort Family. Who can Soldiers call when they need assistance for loved ones at home? They can call Fort Family. During times of national emergency or after weather leaves hard-hit areas in pieces, who checks on Soldiers and Families? The answer again is Fort Family.
The Army Reserve Family Programs Directorate established the Fort Family Outreach and Support Center, “Fort Family,” as the Army Reserve’s rally point for Family Programs to provide 24-hour per day, 365 days a year access to information and connections to community resources by calling 866-345-8248.
“Fort Family is what the Army Reserve is promoting for families if they have any issues,” said Brig. Gen. José R. Burgos, deputy commanding general of the 99th Regional Support Command headquartered at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey. The issues don’t have to be military. It could problems with the house or vehicle. They can call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and someone from Fort Family will guide that person to the right point of contact and their issues should get resolved.
“When our Soldiers are deployed, there’s a lot of issues that happen back home,” he said. Soldiers cannot be thinking that their families are not well taken care of because it affects mission effectiveness on the battlefield.
Soldiers are not 100 percent combat effective when they are deployed and issues are not being addressed at home, Burgos explained. “When Soldiers feel like there is somebody or some resources in the rear that can actually take care of an issue for their family members, then that Soldier is going to give you 200 percent while executing their mission.”
Fort Family is not just for Families dealing with deployments. Soldiers can call Fort Family anytime, while in any military status.
Many Soldiers see the Family portion of the program title and assume it’s not for single Soldiers. Cheryl Davis, 99th RSC Family Programs director said that single Soldiers can also call. If they have a family member watching their apartment or vehicle while they are deployed, the families can still call Fort Family if there’s a problem.
Although the program has been around a few years, not enough Soldiers and Family members know about it, said Burgos. This is important for individual Soldier and unit readiness, which is a key priority in the Army today.
One family wishes they had known about Fort Family during the past year while Staff Sgt. Jacob Davis, a military police officer with the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, was deployed to Cuba. During his time overseas, his wife Lindsay faced a fire in their home, along with some legal challenges, along with the added stress of being newly married.
“I didn’t hear about Fort Family until this past deployment,” said Jacob. He said he told his wife to call the Red Cross should anything happen because he didn’t know what Fort Family could do.
Lindsay said she hadn’t heard of the program at all until recently when it was discussed at a recent Yellow Ribbon event held June 10-12 at the Westin Tyson Corner Hotel.
“It would have been nice to have this,” she said. “It’s hard having to call your spouse and just say that something is wrong and you can’t fix it.”
“Not only do I have stress going on during my deployment,” said Jacob. “But, I have stress going on at home.”
“And as a spouse, you don’t want to call them with negative news all the time. They can’t communicate what’s going on in their lives every day, so the communication is different anyway. So to be able to call and say ‘the garage caught fire, but I was able to contact so and so, and Fort Family helped me, next week this individual is coming out, the assessor is coming out, the insurance claim is filed. At this point everyone is safe.’”
Fort Family is not only an outlet to get help at home, but the staff also uses official databases such as the Department of Defense Enrollment and Eligibility System, more commonly known as DEERS and the Army Disaster Personnel Accountability and Assessment System to proactively reach out to Soldiers and Family members potentially affected by natural disaster or other crisis events. They do this to provide access to necessary programs, services or information, and support to Command-wide accountability requirements.
In order for everything to work properly, systems have to be up-to-date. Soldiers need to log into ADPASS and ensure their information is current. Also, Soldiers must ensure that their DEERS is up-to-date with all of their dependent information by logging into DEERS online. For more information about Fort Family, go to www.arfp.org.
| Date Taken: | 06.12.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 07.29.2016 12:48 |
| Story ID: | 205467 |
| Location: | FALLS CHURCH, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 84 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort Family keeps the Army Reserve ready, by SSG Christina Dion, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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