No-records counseling can improve life skills

  • Published
  • By Air Force Staff Sgt. William Banton
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  A wife who just had a baby has to quit her job and needs someone to talk to.

A husband is diagnosed with an illness and is trying to live a normal life, but is having a hard time coping.

A child is having problems at school after one of his parents deploys while he was asleep and didn't have time to say goodbye.

The counselors of the Military and Family Life Counseling program are there for military families on issues like these and more.

The program provides service members and their families with short-term, non-medical counseling support from licensed clinical providers.

Some of the issues MFLC counselors support includes relationships, crisis intervention, stress management, grief, occupational and other individual and family issues.

"The MFLC program is an invaluable enhancement to the helping agencies that are available to our families to help them cope with deployment, reintegration or stressful lives," said Kathleen DeShasier, Warfighter and Family Service flight chief.

MFLC counselors can schedule sessions at the convenience of the client and are willing meet in casual public settings, however the Military Family Support Center has a designated office available for those who wish to be in a private location.

"A lot of installations leave their adult MFLCs to just float around the installations, and they will meet at coffee shops or wherever they can find space to meet other adults in public areas," said Marc Derosier, director of the Military Family Support Center. "We've dedicated an office here for the counselors to meet with people in a private office area so they are not distracted by noise and other things."

The MFLC program provides confidential, no-records-kept, counseling sessions from licensed, professional clinical counselors.

"That's an important thing if they are an active duty member coming through the doors," Derosier said. "Some are worried about their careers because they are seeking help, and we don't want any barriers that might prevent them from seeking help. I think you do have populations that are more willing to come because of the confidentiality."

Counselors are also available to see adults for relationship issues, whether individuals are thinking about getting divorced or they are just going through a rough spot. They are available for anyone going through relationship issues - not just married couples.

"The bottom line is their skills are where they are needed and as long as they are doing their short-term situational problem solving for the service members and their families," Derosier said. "That's what their job is and they understand that."

When the Office of the Secretary of Defense contracted MFLC 10 years ago; it was a worldwide program, which at first was very expensive.

But now has become a valuable tool for the military, affecting service members in ways that are unmeasurable, Derosier said.

The importance of the program to the military community is not just how it affects the service members, but also in what it provides for family members in need.

"This is an excellent resiliency tool for our families and community," DeShasier said. "MFLCs are in all our child and youth programs, as well as schools that have a
large population of military children, so we have instant help to our children who are experiencing coping problems during this stressful time in their lives."

The counselors are also available to parents who need tips on how to help their children or themselves, DeShasier said.

MFLCs provide workshops on many different topics, which teach techniques designed to help deal with stress in people's lives.

"I saw [early] the need and value of [MFLC], particularly because of the deployments,
the support families need and spouses need when their loved ones are deployed downrange," Derosier said. "They are dealing with the kids and stress of taking care of the family as essentially a single parent, and that's difficult."

MFLCs are available for more than just deployment stress related issues, DeShasier said. They are available to present workshops on many different topics which provide techniques on how to deal with stress in people's lives.

"I think a lot of people might think that this program is connected to deployment stress," Derosier said. "That is a piece of it, but I think it's bigger than that. I think this program does augment existing military family support programs and other helping agencies such as mental health.

"I think it adds to that. It gives them another tool to help them with daily stresses associated with the military."

For more information or to talk to a counselor, call 384-1534.