PHOENIX--For more than two years, the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA) has responded to an unprecedented level of activations and requests for support, but this continued period of service also means a rededication to the very people who get the job done. The Purple Resolve program aims to do just that, build back the capability and resiliency of our most important resource: our people.
“Our citizen Soldiers, Airmen and civilians serving in the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs have endured significant adversity to keep us safe at home and abroad,” said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. “When you combine that with daily stresses and the impacts of supporting COVID-19 relief efforts, it takes a tremendous toll on their mental health. They deserve every tool available to support their well-being while focusing on critical missions at hand. The Purple Resolve program is the right tool right now to strengthen our heroes, their relationships, and families.”
Servicemembers are taking this training now, starting off with the senior leadership of both the Army and Air Guard components as well as a group of guardsmen who will become the first trainers and take the Purple Resolve curriculum to their units.
“Purple Resolve is a different way of approaching performance optimization and resilience in your organization,” said Maj. Candace Park, DEMA Purple Resolve program director. “We are trying to make our people better people, and those better people make better guardsmen, and they are better husbands and wives and citizens. It’s not just professional development, but personal development in the four areas of a whole person; the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.”
The Purple Resolve program is tailor suited for the 8,300 Arizona guardsmen and emergency management professionals who will be taught over the next two years. Purple Resolve derives from an already successful program that police departments around the nation have used to enhance the well-being of their officers.
“The cornerstone of our organization is our people; they deploy, defend our country and return home. They return changed individuals and sometimes their reintegration can be difficult,” said Maj. Gen. Kerry L. Muehlenbeck, Director of DEMA. “As emotional creatures, what we see is difficult to effectively process. This idea applies to all individuals, military and civilians alike. The key is to address those emotions in productive ways.”
DEMA has teamed up with PTSD NOW! a non-profit organization who funds the program to provide a holistic way of developing its employees and instilling a healthy work-life balance and reduce the stigma of asking for help. “In the military, we are good at developing skill sets and tool sets, but we don’t necessarily get after the heart and mind sets,” Muehlenbeck said.
Craig Rauchle, PTSD NOW! president and founder, begun to offer resource programs to Nevada National Guard organizations after his son, Staff Sgt. Chase Rauchlle, who served as a recruiter in NVARNG, took his own life.
“I decided I needed to make a difference and make his life count for others,” Rauchle said. “When you look at, it’s not just the traumatic experiences but the daily life stressors of being a guardsman, being a partner and a parent, stressors from civilian employers. Looking at all that, we asked ourselves what skills, what people can we provide to help…that’s when we came across what would become purple resolve.”
Rauchle’s organization name, PTSD NOW!, is a play on words to grab attention. Traditionally, PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder, but in this case, it means Prevent and Treat Stress and Depression Now. This ideal of prevention was a point of emphasis for Rauchle.
“We were struggling to find a solution that was preventative and not crisis management,” he said. “All the programs we saw were for people already in a state of emergency, what we wanted to do was provide something like purple resolve that helped people cope with stressors, so they don’t get to a crisis stage.”
Arizona is the second state to embrace the Purple Resolve program. The Nevada National Guard implemented their program in September 202. According to the Nevada National Guard Purple Resolve Director Jeffrey Hopkinson, Soldiers and Airmen on waitlists to attend the two-day course.
“The greatest value is that soldiers and airmen learn how to take care of themselves and how that gets them to perform optimally, as well as show leaders how to treat guardsmen and meet them where they’re at,” said Hopkinson. “I know at least on the Army side we talk about the right way to care for our soldiers, but we don’t train on it. And this is the first training I’ve seen that focuses on that down to the individual level.”
Hopkinson said he sees this effort as a marathon, not a sprint, “…one day we will hang up the uniform but what do we do after that? Have we taken care of our National Guard members in a way that they will continue to flourish?” Hopkinson asked. “We can’t just take from them and not give them something back to take care of themselves after they leave the organization and purple resolves gives them the tools for that.”