Psychological health directors help Soldiers, Airmen manage stress

  • Published
  • By Army Sgt. Darron Salzer
  • National Guard Bureau
ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) --  National Guard officials have appointed directors of psychological health for each state and territory to ensure a continuance of care for service members and their families.

The state directors of psychological health have been assigned to each of the 54 Joint Force Headquarters to serve service members in the Army and Air National Guards, National Guard officials said.

"We are slowly building a behavioral health program (in the National Guard)," said Public Health Service Capt. Joan Hunter, the National Guard Bureau's director of psychological health. "Currently, we have 56 directors of psychological health."

"These are licensed practitioners at the independent level, meaning they have state licenses to practice without supervision, but we provide them with supervision and make it mandatory, even if they don't need it," Captain Hunter said. "In other words, they have a lot of experience."

The DPH assesses what is going on in the states, acts as a consultant to leaders and service members, and assesses and refers service members who are showing signs of stress, post-traumatic stress or a mild traumatic brain injury.

State DPHs are working with chaplains and the surgeons from both the Army and Air Guards to design what behavioral health should look like in the National Guard, Captain Hunter said.

Dr. Gretchen Hegeman is state director of psychological health for the Maine National Guard. She creates programs in the Army Guard where there are voids between those already in place, pulling together resources and creating standard operating procedures.

"On the air side, I am the one who evaluates the Airmen and gets them into services to help them out with their stress," Dr. Hegeman said.

When a program for preventing behavioral health issues comes from the National Guard Bureau, active duty or Department of Defense, Dr. Hegeman figures out how it can best be implemented to help guardsmen in her state.

Guard members have access to many tools and resources to manage stress, Captain Hunter said.

"There are resources at the federal level through Military OneSource, and the Department of Health and Human Services sends out funding to the state level in order to create a higher visibility for Guard members to (know what resources are out there)," she said.

Stress management is important for not only service members, but also their families, Dr. Hegeman said.

"If the level of stress is not controlled, then that can cause problems for the whole family," she said.

It is important to get the community alerted to the needs of service members and their families, and the culture surrounding the two, Dr. Hegeman said.

"It's what we do, and we are here to help them be the best they can be, given the stresses that we put them under," she said.