BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Air Force Individual Reservists (IR) are the absolute best our nation has to offer. They have unlimited opportunities to serve in an extremely flexible status that provides valuable skills to their organization while building and sustaining their warfighting skills. An IR’s unit has operational control for their members and is the most connected to their reservists. The purpose of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Resilience Tactical Pause (RTP) is to “increase Airmen connectedness and sense of purpose among our Airmen in order to increase unit cohesion, trust and confidence in command teams while soliciting feedback to decrease suicides.” The best place for this is with the IR’s operational unit where the command team can look in their members’ eyes and assess their well-being.
Headquarters Readiness and Integration Organization (HQ RIO) and our Detachments are ready to support the IRs and owning organizations if needed. Our IRs have multiple helping agencies they can reach out to at their owning organization, but HQ RIO can always work with IRs to find the support they need and promote help-seeking. We can help locate Religious Support Teams, Mental Health Professionals, Community Support Coordinators, Violence Prevention Integrators, Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, Volunteer Victim Advocates, Military and Family Life Counselors, Family Advocacy Program personnel, Community Cohesion Coordinators, Physical Health Professionals, Master Resilience Trainers and Legal Assistance attorneys.
If IRs are unable to attend their organization’s RTP, we strongly recommend supervisors call their Airmen and engage in sincere conversations about connectedness, resilience, outlets for seeking help and their value as individuals to the team.
Col. Amy J. Boehle
Commander, HQ Readiness & Integration Organization