MCFP SECO VMSS 2021 – Opening Remarks-Prioritize Self-Care with Military OneSource– Day 1 Transcript

[Erica Slayton]Fantastic. Greetings military spouses, and welcome to the first day of the 2021 Virtual Military Spouse symposium. My name is Erica Slayton, and I am the associate director for military community support programs, your host to kick off this event. I want you to buckle up because you are in for a unique and engaging virtual experience designed to inform and empower you as you pursue your goals along your military spouse journey. And speaking of journeys, if you're just joining us, I would love for you to take a moment to pop in the chat pod where you're joining us from. That would be fantastic. I am joining from the Washington D.C. area, and we finally have a little bit of sunshine. And so I'm just thrilled to be here and I'd love to know where you're joining from. I see Illinois, I see Virginia, I see San Antonio, Quantico, awesome. That is fantastic. I see some people who are also overseas. Thank you so much for joining us today. And if you know a spouse who has not registered for this symposium, there is still time. They can attend this event and we're going to post the link to the registration page right now. Look, let them know. You've got to join, you've got to be in the space. But before we dive in, I want to present to you our keynote, who is responsible for overseeing a wide range of programs and policies addressing the needs and challenges of service members, their families and survivors. These programs include military spouse employment, Child And Youth programs, Morale, Welfare And Recreation and Military OneSource. She has extensive involvement in military family issues beyond her current role, having led a myriad of national programs and initiatives. She also draws from personal experience as a military spouse to support the wellbeing of our military community. And now, I am pleased to welcome Deputy Assistant Secretary Of Defense for Military Community And Family Policy, Mrs. Patty Barron.

[Patty Barron]Thank you, Erica, for that kind introduction. Hello everyone. I am so happy to be here with you today. My name is Patty Barron, and I am the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military Community and Family Policy. As a military spouse of 30 years, I have gone through many of the same challenges that you're going through now. As a registered nurse, I have seven licenses from seven different states.

It's not an easy life, especially for us professional folks. It's also not an easy life for those trying to start a new career or start a profession, but there are tools out here that really can help you. As a matter of fact, you might notice that I'm standing in front of the Fort Belvoir Army Community Services building, and the reason I'm doing that is because I want to tell you that there's a plethora of virtual resources, but there's also some real brick and mortar resources for you to take advantage of. Every service has them. And later on in the summit, you're going to be able to go into breakout rooms to learn more about your specific service. One of the most important things I'd like to leave with you today is that for me, there were three things that I did through those 30 years that kept me on a forward path. The first one was education. I tried really hard to learn as much as I could from the resources that were provided to me, so I'm really proud of you for being here today. The second one was networking. My girlfriends, my tribe, they were so important in keeping my motivation going. You know those days when you wake up and you think, "This isn't going to work” Well, the girlfriends are the ones, the spouses, our male spouses too, are the ones that keep you going. And then the third one is keeping my family intact, keeping those relationships strong.This life is not easy, but when you can really find the kinds of tools that you need to communicate with your spouse, to engage with your children, to grow towards resilience, you're going to find that it's worth it, and on the third day, you're going to get lots of great information on how to do that. So before I go, I just want to ask one great big favor. Let us know how we did. Did you enjoy it? Was there something we could have done a little bit differently? What else should we be talking about? Your voice is so incredibly important to us because together we are stronger. Thank you.

[Erica Slayton]And thank you, Mrs. Barron. I could not agree with you more. Together we are stronger, and having been a military spouse myself, I often leaned on other military spouses to support me through the good times, the bad times and all the times in between. And that's the main reason why we're starting off this year's symposium on the topic of self-care. Spouses, are you ready to prioritize taking care of you? Together, we are going to explore the many Military OneSource resources available to boost your self-care routine. And joining me is Ms. Susan Colicchio, Military OneSource health and wellness coach, who's going to help me do that. But before we get to Susan, I want you to take a moment to reflect on your self-care with a question we pose on the next slide. The first step towards self-care is to define what it is. I would love for you to use the chat pod and share. What does self-care mean to you? I would love to know what you think, because if I can be honest, I will tell you that based on my definition of self-care, I wasn't doing so well last year, and I continue to have challenges. And while your story

may not be exactly like mine, maybe you can relate to this. Okay. During this pandemic, my family, like many others had to make a lot of adjustments at work, school, travel plans. I found myself consuming way too much news and social media that was just downright depressing, and it was adversely impacting my sleep and exercise. And I admit that on several occasions, I would go several days without even stepping outside. And I was just existing, my head down, doing things, neglecting myself, zoning out on conversations I would have with my family. And there were times when I would hear what my husband was saying, but I really wasn't listening, which means I couldn't remember what he told me, and then we will get into a whole discussion. And so, if you can relate to any of this, just let me know in the chat pod. Don't leave me out here alone. If I'm hitting your house, let me know you all. But I'm looking at your answers here in terms of self-care, because don't you know that if you don't take care of yourself, how in the world can you take care of your relationship? So as you reflect on self-care, what does it mean to you? And I see many of you in the chat pod have said... Milagros, “for self-care, it means loving yourself first, taking care of yourself.” I also see Adriana who talks about Monday, me days. I need a Monday me day, I need an everyday me day self-care. This is from Sabrina. Thank you, Sabrina. Getting up early, a quiet time alone, hot baths, walks. I think we can all agree that it's different for all of us. So, are you making self-care a priority? I'd love to know again, in the chat pod, are you making self-care a priority? Yes or no? Let me know, because I'd like to know. I see Catherine says, "Sometimes, no." I see so many of you struggle with self-care. Well, you know what? That's me. So for those of you who are not, I'd love for you to tell me why. What is getting in the way of your self-care? Take a moment and tell me. Why is self-care a challenge for those of you who aren't practicing self-care? I know what my challenges are, I got a laundry list of them, but I'd love to know what your challenges are. And I see time, I see... I see Imani, Imani says, "Procrastination." I see being overwhelmed at work, not enough time. Time, time, time. I totally... You all, I get it. What I'd like to do is on the next slide, I want you to discover how Military OneSource can support your self-care. Military OneSource offers a wide range of individualized consultations, coaching and counselings for many aspects of military life. Everything from financial counseling to education, to non-medical counseling. In fact, if you look at that logo in the middle as the entry point to Military OneSource, the call center, we have master's level consultants that take anywhere between 30,000 and 40,000 calls every month, they also take live chats. And the top reason why service members and families reach out to Military OneSource is for the Spouse Education And Career Opportunities program. We'll talk about that a little later. Second is non-medical counseling. We'll talk about that later, too, and third as for our tax services. There are a number of other

resources that we offer here, and if I could just put a pin in self-care, elder care consultants can really answer questions to help you access resources and support for services for an older family member. Our consultants can research anything from in-home care options to senior transportation, but housing really is one of the most popular elder care requests. And if I could just share a story here, we had a service member who had his mother in an assisted living facility in a different state, and there was no other family in the picture. The service member felt a lot of pressure to find better care for his mother. Unfortunately, between the distance and duties at work, he simply did not have time to research his options. What do we do if we're Military OneSource? We did the research for him. He called up Military OneSource, and our consultants researched options based on his needs. Consultants also called various assisted living facilities in his mother's area to inquire about the availability, care, insurance options. You name it, we did the research. The service member was so excited that he had been in contact with one of our ... He was so excited that he actually had the contact information for the facilities, and he started the process to get his mom in the home care that she needed. If there's one thing I could share with you about Military OneSource, it's that you can outsource your to-do list. One of the other resources I want to share while we're on this slide is our new MilParent specialty consultations. These provide support for expectant parents and parents of children of up to 5 years of age on a variety of parenting topics, from self-care to managing challenging behaviors. For those of you who are seeking support, this consultation may include support for parents seeking help regarding concerns, maybe parents separated from family support, parents experiencing a spouse's deployment. You're eligible for these consultations that are unlimited by phone and video. We have 14 different curriculum topics from self-care 101 to sleep issues for parents and the child, to exploring options for child care, so many self-care options to support you. Now, joining me to talk about one of my favorite self-care services is Susan Gallicchio, Military OneSource health and wellness coach, who has been supporting our military community for more than 30 years. If you are inspired to take care of you and to boost your self-care routine, Susan is going to tell you just how Military OneSource health and wellness coaching can help. Welcome Susan.

[Susan Gallicchio]Thank you Erica. I'm so glad to be here today everybody, and thanks for coming. As you know, my name is Susan Gallicchio, and I'm one of the health and wellness coaches here at Military OneSource. Health and wellness coaching is my passion, I have to admit. I've been involved with the military for over 30 years as a former spouse of a Marine. I was an active participant in initiating the Semperfit

program on Marine Corps base Kaneohe, Hawaii. I've been with Military OneSource for almost 10 years. The next few slides, I'd like to explain in detail the coaching process. Ready? Health and wellness coaching targets change. In fact, we call ourselves agents of change, and we use evidence-based practices such as motivational interviewing and positive psychology to ask you questions to trigger aha moments. Those aha moments are what empowers you. We would like to assist you in becoming empowered. The first step in creating a wellness plan is to identify a focus such as self-care for general health and wellness. Some of the questions we might ask you are “What prompted you to contact Military OneSource for health and wellness coaching?” Or “How would you like things to be different in your life?” That's a loaded question, isn't it? Does anybody have suggestions or comments on how they would like things to be different in their life? I do see that Tracey wrote, "Yay. USMC. Oorah." Thank you Tracey. Well, when we ask these questions, it stimulates conversation to connect with you to solidify a focus area. Then the next step is we help to create a vision. The coach's role is to help participants with this. The vision speaks to the purpose, and it guides the direction. Most people find that writing down their vision helps to keep them focused. Has anyone ever created a vision board? If you did, where would you keep it in your home where you would see it on a regular basis? I know personally I keep my vision board in my kitchen where I can see it as a daily reminder to stay focused on self-care, and away from the cookies. Would anyone like to share with us how your vision helped you stay focused and achieve a goal? We have someone who has the vision board in their office. I love it. Somebody else has it next to the TV. Mary, thank you. Great. Thanks guys. Then next after we have our focus, we created our vision to support our focus. We assist with creating SMART goals. SMART goals give participants a sense of direction and helps to organize the plan. They lead us into action. Does anybody have an example of a SMART goal that they've used in the past? I can give you an example of a SMART goal that one of our participants used. A participant's spouse will be returning home from a deployment in six months, and the participant wants to lose 20 pounds within the next six months in order to look great for their returning spouse. Since their spouse has been deployed, they've not been able to take care of themselves due to added responsibilities with children and homeschooling as a result of the pandemic. We all know what that feels like, right? Specific is I want to lose 20 pounds, measurable by the scale. Some people don't like the scale, but they do like the jean test. Is it achievable? Yes. Is it realistic? Yes. Is it timely? Yes, it's six months. Next, so now we have our focus area. We have our vision to refer back to. We have our SMART goal. After this, we start to create our action plan. We do our action plan together. We co-create an action plan with you. We like to say you don't get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the action that

produces the results. We put our heads together to figure out what is possible. We talk about what is going to help you move from here to where you want to be. As coaches, we stay current on wellness trends, and are able to best advise you as necessary on health-related topics. This is how we support you. We act as your accountability partner and motivational partner, and we walk you through this journey side-by-side. Can anybody give us an example of what their focus would be? I have someone who wants to lose 40 pounds and over the next few weeks, losing two to three pounds per week. That is definitely attainable. We have somebody else who's training for and running for a half a marathon. Awesome. We have somebody else that wants to increase their water intake, and another person that had mentioned that they want to drink more water. We have Stacey that wants to get her teaching certificate. Perfect. We have Alexis that wants to try and eat more vegetables. Somebody else wants to be debt free. I love it. Keep them coming. We want to lose weight, and regain better health, and gain my RN license. Ahmani, awesome. Save enough for cost and closing for a down payment for a house. These are such great focus areas, and they would definitely fit into SMART goals, and we would be so happy to help you reach these goals. Complete medical coding training, get a master's degree. Awesome. Thanks guys. Keep it coming. It sounds really good. We are the ones that help you, because we document the active plan. Then we meet up again every week or once every two weeks, which ever is more comfortable for you, and then we find out what your wins are. Because every time you have a win, it builds self-efficacy. Positive reinforcements build self-efficacy and confidence, and those are the things that lead us into achieving our goals when we believe in ourself. Somebody else wants to launch a business on an international level. I love it. I've even had someone like that. Thank you so much. We help you find out what is personal to you, and we put down one, two, maybe three items in your active plan that you commit to doing every week or every two weeks. Key reminders when creating a plan. We like to take a holistic view. Holistic is physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and workplace professional. When Erica asked earlier what are your self-related topics, a lot of people mentioned emotional, spiritual, physical, so that's very good. Can you give us more examples, like maybe somebody give us an example of a physical self-care area. Yes. I had someone say walking one to two miles five times a week makes me feel energized. Yes. You would be surprised, maybe, how much walking helps us to lose weight. In fact Center for Disease Control says 10,000 steps five days a week helps us lose a pound a week. Yoga each week, deep breathing. I love it. Stretching. Some people want to clean their house, help them get organized. Awesome. How about an example for psychological self-care if you've any? Yes, meditation, journaling, reading, alone time, meditation and mirror work. I love that Cassandra. I love mirror work, valuing

myself and my positive affirmations. Absolutely. For some people, it's reading a book, such as emotional intelligence and boundaries. I saw earlier that somebody put self-care is boundaries. I love boundaries. Awesome job, especially when you're a spouse, and your spouse is deployed, and you're taking care of a lot of responsibilities around the home, and the car, the yard, the children, everything. You do have to be able to say, "No. Not today." How about an example of emotional self-care? Have any of those, emotional self-care? Let's see what we got. Learning to say no. Woo woo. Praying, yes. Off time is key. Boundaries somebody wrote in bold. Love it. Journaling. Checking in with the spouse. Very good. Buy another puppy. I'm all for that. Gratitude practice. Gratitude practice is awesome. Very good. Somebody put a lunchtime with friends makes them a happier human for emotional. Very good. Reduce temperament. Yes. I love it. Then we have spiritual. Any examples on spiritual self-care? I saw meditation earlier, and praying. A good cry. Absolutely. Personal space. Reading gospel. Bible study. I love it. Very much into chakras. Chakras is good. Praying. Fellowship and leadership. I love these. You guys are awesome. How about workplace and professional? Let's see what we have. Bible time, study time. Those are so awesome for spiritual self-care. Sounds good. Learning a new language for workplace or professional. Managing the schedule. Finding a job that doesn't limit me to my husband's rank. That's very good. Keeping things tidy. Starting a private tutoring business. Nice. Getting certificated. Joining JKO to help learn new skills for life work. I love these. Very good. Certification. Finishing their degree. Very good. Somebody else wrote, "I love to connect with my co-workers and talk about positive things that happen at work. I would also say attending these awesome career expo today is an example of professional self-care." Yes. Kudos. Classical music. Nice. Be flexible. Gain moral support. Those are all very good examples, everybody. Then next, here we go. We coaches do assist with mindfulness, and so mindfulness is a trendy word right now. Some people say I'm mindful of this and mindful of that. They're really not connected to what it really is. Let's talk about it for a minute. What is mindfulness? It's the opposite of autopilot. Being in autopilot means we are really not present. We're not attached to what we're doing. For example, autopilot is when we're driving to work and we're stressed, or we're thinking about a million things, and we end up in the work parking lot, and we're like, "I don't know how I got here. I wasn't thinking about getting here. I wasn't paying attention to how I got here and here I am.” That's a great example for autopilot. And we have some people giving examples for being mindful, being present in the moment, accepting things as they are, being aware and grounded in the present. And how do we do that? We stay present and attached to what we're doing so we stay focused. And when we're in a mindful state, we can be self-directed. And when we're self-directed, when we can lead ourselves into the goal we want to achieve, our

mission and our purpose. If we're on autopilot, we're going to do what we've always done and get the same results over and over again, so we want to try and stay mindful and present. And when we are, maybe when we're triggered by a stressor, we won't eat the entire bag of cookies. Maybe we'll only eat two cookies, or maybe we'll just put the cookies down and we won't eat any at all. Let's see. Not being caught up in the past or anxious. Aware and focused, count backwards from five to interrupt the negative self-talk and have to go to positive phrase to tell yourself. I love that, Donna. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody. Somebody else put breathe. Very good. It's important to be mindful because if a participant has a hard time co-creating a plan in terms of what they want to eat, or they don't want to calorie count, then they say, "Well, I can be mindful of what I'm eating." Most people or many people like to use MyFitnessPal in order to track their calories and their steps, and other people have an iWatch to track their movements and other people will use... Let's see. We like to tell people about myplate.gov. Myplate.gov will tell you what you should eat. For example, if you wanted to lose weight or just be healthy eating, then a quarter of your plate should be fruit, a quarter of it should be vegetables, a quarter of it should be multigrains and a quarter of it should be proteins. Myplate.gov is a really good resource to look at how to lose weight. MyFitnessPal is my best friend, somebody wrote. Yeah, get it. Okay. So next. Lastly, here is a list of our focus areas for health and wellness coaching. They're great focus areas. We will help you all the way. Our triage consultants are ready to answer the phones 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to help you with scheduling your health and wellness intake session. Does anybody have any questions? I see Donna wrote, "I keep hearing MyFitnessPal everywhere I go. I'm going to have to use that." "How is it different from actual counselings?" Amy asked. That's a very good question. I'm really glad you asked that question. Counseling is directive and prescriptive. They tell you what to do. In health and wellness coaching, we feel that you already have the power and you already know what to do, so we help you bring it out. How many times have you gotten a prescription or a direction from a change agent, such as a counselor, and then you didn't follow it, where you went back to your next session, you didn't do your homework, you didn't do the reading they asked you to do? And so what we want to do is build confidence and self-efficacy, so we help you develop your own plan, your own prescription, your own directive and that way you own it. And when we own something and we follow through with it and we get positive reinforcements from that, it builds empowerment. How was that? Did I answer the question? Anybody else have any questions? Oh, it's free. Somebody asked how much does it cost. It's part of Military OneSource. It's absolutely 100% free for you. "Can we call for more than one of these focuses?" You can call for more than one of these focuses, and we'll see if we can fit it

into a smart goal. And if we can, we will definitely move forward with that. We aim to please. We are here to help you achieve your goal, to follow your mission. "Can this be something couples can do or is it strictly individual?" Right now, it is strictly individual, but we have a lot of other resources for couples such as building healthy relationships. Let's see. "Are there any limits on the number of calls per year?" Absolutely not. In fact, there's unlimited sessions for an entire year with health and wellness coaching. "Is this available to active-duty?" Carol asked. It is absolutely available to active-duty, National Guard, reservists, all dependent family members 13 years old and up. "How do you become a health and wellness coach? Currently in the process of finishing my degree in public health. So passionate about health and wellness." Awesome. Yay. Good for you. Yes. To become a health and wellness coach, you would prefer to have a degree in a health-related field, social science, master's degree and then a certification for health and wellness coaching. Yes, Julietta. That's amazing. Thank you. "Should have been using these resources way earlier in my mispo life." Yay. And then Joan asked, "Is it available in California?" We are available in the entire United States and everywhere overseas, because we're using Zoom, telephone, and we also use the computer for texting, web based counseling. Okay. Let's see. "Slides say unlimited sessions for one year. What happens if you want more sessions past a year?" We can find another goal to focus on if you wanted to do that. "What if I have a master's in dietetics and nutrition? Can I become a health and wellness coach?" Well, that's a good question. I wouldn't understand why you wouldn't be able to become a health and wellness coach, but there's a process with hiring, as you know. But you can give us a call. We're here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We're here to please you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, well, thank you so much for your participation, everybody. You were great. And I'm going to hand the floor back to Erica.

[Erica Slayton]Great. Thank you so much, Susan. What a wealth of information. I want to tell you all that health and wellness coaching is one of my favorite services that we offer through Military OneSource. And I know Susan mentioned this, but health and wellness coaching is also great for teens as well. So I know, especially during the pandemic, when there were services that shut down for teens, health and wellness coaching was really a great way to get teens back engaged with extracurricular activities, to help them set goals as well, so really great resources. And I'm so glad that you will tap into these resources because that's what they're here for. We're here to serve our military community. As we were talking about goals and self-care, many of you mentioned professional and personal goals. What I want to talk to you about is the Spouse Education And Career Opportunities program, but I'm not going to steal the

thunder of some of the career coaches that are going to be a part of this symposium. But I do want to let you know that if you're looking to fulfill those goals, we do have master's level certified career coaches who can help you explore your interests, maybe refresh your resume and maybe even jumpstart a career, or if you want to become your own business owner, in which I saw many of you said, "Hey, I want to start my own business," we can help. Military spouses can speak with a SECO career coach from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday, or 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Really a fantastic resource. And you're still eligible for SECO up to one year post separation or retirement of your service member. Really great resource. I also want to tell you about MySECO website. Oh my goodness, so many resources that are available to military spouses, a wealth of tools, information. You can even chat with a career coach or conduct a mock interview via video. And also it's important that you create an account on MySECO, and this will give you exclusive access to content, and that includes things like a resume builder, career coaching packages and a career assessment to help you identify your career path. Again, I'm not going to steal the thunder of our career coaches. They're going to go and more detail about everything that's available. And I have to mention the My Career Advancement Scholarship Program. It is a workforce development program that provides $4,000 free tuition assistance to eligible military spouses to pursue a license, a certification or an associate's degree in any career field or occupation. To be eligible, your service member does have to be on Title X orders and pay grades E1 to E5, W1 to W2 and 01 to 01. And in the coming months, we will be expanding the financial assistance provided by MyCAA to cover national testing and continuing education credits. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay tuned to the latest updates to MyCAA and MSEP, the Military Spouse Employment Partnership. Oh my goodness, what a great resource for military spouses to connect with employers. And I want to tell you all, I've had my share of unemployment. I remember moving from Missouri to Pennsylvania, reluctantly turned in my resignation, and I said, "Yeah, I've got a master's degree. I'll find a job. No problem." Well, y'all, nine months later, still no job, but nine months and one day, employment finally came. And so I share all of that to say is that I was so hesitant to share that I was a military spouse with a perspective employer, but not so with MSEP because these employers are looking to hire military spouses. They are a mighty team of 500 organizations and companies that are looking to recruit, hire, promote and retain you as a military spouse. And we are also featuring just a few of our partners at the end of today and tomorrow via live stream at 3 p.m. Eastern. Today, we have the Veterans Administration and then tomorrow we have Accenture, e-TeleQuote and Medical Staffing 360, who will be sharing hiring programs and initiatives. Again, be sure to check

it out. And while we're talking about checking things out, you don't want to miss the closing session with Lee Kelly, who's the director of Military Community Support Programs. We have put together a special Military OneSource kit just for military spouses who registered and attend this symposium, but you got to be in the closing session. You are going to love it because it's practical. I'm giving a little hint here. It's practical. It's something that you can use every day. Again, you don't want to miss the closing session to learn how you can get your own Military OneSource kit. In addition to fulfilling personal and professional goals with the help of a career coach, on the next slide, I want to share with you how Military OneSource can support your self-care goals through non-medical counseling. We're often asked, "Okay, Erica, what is non-medical counseling?" And so I'm going to explain it. And so if you can find a different term that we can use to describe non-medical counseling, we'd love to know exactly what your ideas are because we've been struggling with it for a little bit. But let me tell you what non-medical counseling is. Non-medical counseling offers the opportunity for you to speak with a licensed clinical provider about every day in military life issues. I mean, these are issues related to some of the ones we just already talked about, communication, relationships and actually, relationships, that's the top reason why service members and families reach out to a counselor. It could be adjusting to a deployment. Maybe it's a blended family, or maybe just you and your spouse, you need to, I don't know, connect in a much greater way through communication. Again, these are available for our military community, these counseling sessions. They're short term. They're available for up to 12 sessions per issue per person. This connects you immediately with, again, those counselors, those masters level clinicians, and they are available not only by telephone, but also face to face, and many locations also by live chat and by video. We make it very, very easy. And I will share that through COVID-19, we expanded our non-medical counseling services for children and youth, so if you have a child six to 12 years old, they can have a video non-medical counseling session in addition to face-to-face, but it has to be in a family context. So the whole family has to be a part of the session. And then for teens who are 13 to 17, they can experience their own non-medical counseling session with a counselor, a parent or guardian just has to come on the video just to wave, say hi, I'm here and give permission for that teen to experience that session. Again, it is a really great way, and I will share, I am no longer eligible for Military OneSource non-medical counseling, but I will tell you that prior to this, I did take advantage of non-medical counseling through Military OneSource. And it is one of those resources that you don't realize what you have available to you until you no longer have that resource, so take advantage of non-medical counseling, whether it's through Military OneSource or is through the Military and Family Life Counseling

Program, where there are counselors that are available all over the world to support those non-medical counseling issues. So I'm going to just share a quick testimony. We had a spouse who wrote into Military OneSource and talked about how she had gone through a counseling session and how that counselor handled her situation discreetly and with care. She really loved the fact that that counselor helped her get through one of the toughest times in her life, and don't we all have tough times? We all have tough times and there's nothing wrong with that because we all are human. It's life. We're going to go through some hardships, but the two keywords that I'd love to just point out about what this spouse wrote is that it's discreet, so all Military OneSource services are confidential. You, your Military OneSource individual profile is not tied to TRICARE or your medical records. We don't share your information with others. When you call about an issue that you're having with your spouse, or maybe it's with your teen or your child, that's between you and the Military OneSource consultant who answers the phone or the counselor. Now, there are some privacy limitations, and we share that right up front. If you're calling for counseling services, if you disclose the situation that involves harming yourself or others or domestic violence or child abuse, we are mandated reporters to inform the appropriate parties, just to ensure your safety and the safety of others. But again, non-medical counseling is a great resource, and the other piece of the counseling that I like about the story that this military spouse shared is about the care. And again, we know how difficult it is or can be to ask for help. So when you call, know that, that consultant on the phone is going to treat you with respect. And most of the consultants at Military OneSource has some type of affiliation with the military. Either maybe they have served or they're a military spouse, or maybe they've had a parent who served. Last year, 100% of service members and families who used Military OneSource said they would refer a Military OneSource to a friend, so I encourage you, take advantage of these resources to support your wellbeing. On the next slide, I'd like to move from call center support to online support, and Susan shared a number of online tools. She mentioned myplate.gov, and I want you to know that through Military OneSource, there are several other tools and resources that can help you manage the stresses of day-to-day life, including online services that can help you be your best. So I'm going to ask a question here. What online tools have you used to achieve your self care goals? I'd love to know. I guess it was maybe a year ago. I bought a treadmill that's still downstairs, and it has a fitness program on it where you can live stream with coaches. And so, I'll consider that an online tool, but I would love to know what are some online tools that you have used to reach your self-care goals? And I see Cassandra's like, "I've got a fit app that's awesome." I see Headspace app. I see also, gosh, Chill Drills. Michelle, we're going to talk about Chill Drills in a minute. Amanda

talks a breathing app. That's wonderful, so many apps and online resources that are out there to support you. And so, listening to podcasts, I see as well, thank you for sharing those. I'm going to move to the next slide because I want you to know about a great resource. If you have not tapped into this resource, oh my goodness, you are missing out, and we don't want you to miss out. It's called our MWR Digital Library and this house's content for service members, spouses, their families. You can enjoy for free from anywhere around the world. All you need is a Military OneSource log-in and an internet connection. This offers access to digital resources for adults, children, youth and teens. You'll find eBooks and audio books on virtually every topic, language learning courses, genealogy resources, magazines. Look, you never have to buy a magazine again as long as you're eligible for Military OneSource. We have films and documentaries, full length concerts, music lessons. And I'm just going to point out a few of these. There's Kanopy that provides access to more than 30,000 award-winning films and documentaries, anywhere, anytime using any device. There's also tutor.com, which is online tutoring and homework help provided 24/7 to you. This is personalized help that is available in more than 100 subjects for grades K-12 and college students. There's also Mango Languages, one of my favorites. This is a digital language learning program for learners of all levels with courses in more than 70 different foreign languages. You got to check it out. When I started, I didn't know what I wanted to be, so I started down the career being pre-med, and I just knew I wanted to be a doctor and speak fluent Spanish. [foreign language 00:54:45], okay. And that's all I know y'all. I need to go back to Mango Languages because it is a great resource. And so, not only is it available to our military community, but specifically, for the MWR Digital Library, for Department of Defense civilians who are eligible for library services is available to you as well. And then I've got to talk about ArtistWorks music lessons because it provides access to hundreds of video lessons, including ones for guitar, piano, drums, ukulele, bluegrass, hip hop, so many great resources. Check out the MWR Digital Library, so many resources. And so, as we move to the next slide, I want to tell you that some of you have talked about time. I know I have time issues as well, so in order to meet the diverse needs of military parents, the Department of Defense is proud to offer our expanded child care service, Military OneSource's hourly child care subscription services allows you to search a national database of more than 1 million caregivers, including babysitters, pet care and elder care providers. You can check references and review background checks. This virtual solution allows you to choose, hire and pay providers on your own terms, and we're going to put a link here in the chat pod because we want you to know, take advantage of this resource. On this page, you will also learn about other child care resources like militarychildcare.com and Childcare Aware of America. As we've been

talking about these online resources, on the next slide, I want to tell you about Love Every Day. And I would love to know, have you heard of Love Every Day? If you'd let me know in the chat pod, have you heard of Love Every Day? Yes or no? I see a lot of people are like, "Nope." I see a lot of no's there. I see a few yeses, but let me tell you what Love Every Day is. Love Every Day is designed to build self-care into your relationships. We have this tagline that says, "Do you text often, but say very little?" And I know for me, I have done that in the past. And so, it's not good, it's not good. Love Every Day is a mobile solution that allows you to put in your mobile number, your spouse's mobile number and every day for 21 days, you'll receive an interesting prompt. It might read something like, "What's the best relationship advice you've ever received?" Once you answer, once your spouse answers, then you're able to see each other's answers on the same mobile device. It's such a fun activity. You're going to love it. You got to check that out. And plus, while we're talking about relationships, you got to check out the Relationship Summit that's occurring on day three. It is going to be a blast. On the next slide, this really is a way, and Susan talked about it, how we can practice mindfulness. There are Chill Drills that are available, and we're going to put a link to a Chill Drill here that is in the chat pod here, but these are a set of deep breathing, relaxation exercises. There are Chill Drills on getting the sleep, easing back pain, so many different resources that are available to you. Now, this is the MP3 player version of it, somebody's like, "What's an MP3 player?" We also have through our app, we also have Chill Drills that are available through Google play and Apple's App Store. What I want to do is I just want to share 45 seconds of a Chill Drill with you, and we're going to play that right now just to give you an idea.

[Chill Drill]Close your eyes, sit comfortably with your feet on the floor or lay down. Place your hands in your lap or at your sides. Keep your legs and ankles uncrossed. Take three long deep breaths. We want to get rid of all negative thoughts and pay attention to our breathing.

[Erica Slayton]Okay, so it sounds like some of you are not able to hear it, but what we're going to do is if you would go to militaryonesource.mil, you will be able to check out that Chill Drill and listen to it for yourself. We're going to go to the next slide here because we're out of time, but I want to just share that all the resources that we talked about are available through the My Military OneSource mobile app, there's so much that's available to you. And lastly, on our last slide here, we just want to make sure that you prioritize self-care. We would love to know. I hope you take away a self-care resource for yourself or share it with someone else. And again, Susan and I are just

delighted to have been here to share all of these resources with you. And as we conclude here, just want to share that, I want to, first of all, thank Susan for joining and all of you for attending today's session. Time is so precious, and we are so honored that you spent your time with us. The handouts from the session will be available tomorrow on the My SECO website where you registered and joined the symposium, and then in the chat pod, you're going to find two links. The first link is for the session survey. Please provide your feedback on your experience today, and the second link is where you can download your certificate of participation, and this concludes our presentation. Please join us at 10 a.m. for Be Your Own Boss; Find Your Passion. Everyone, thank you so much for joining and enjoy the rest of the symposium.