American Red Cross Offering Free Class to Help Military Families Cope With the Stress of D...( Course Presently Available in Six...),Health

Course Presently Available in Sixteen States and Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Red Cross today announced a new course. Coping With Deployments: Psychological First Aid for Military Families, is now available. The course, offered free of charge, is open to military family members of active duty, Reserve and National Guard forces, as well as veterans and their families. Presently, the course is offered in sixteen states (Ala., Ark., Calif., Colo., Fla., Hawaii, Ind., Minn., Neb., N.H., Ohio, Ore., Pa., Tenn., Texas, and W.Va.) and Washington, D.C. However, the Red Cross plans to make the course available across the country in the summer of 2009.

The Red Cross developed the course to address the stress and strain of deployments on military family members to include spouses, children, parents, siblings and significant others of servicemembers and veterans. The course is taught by actively licensed Red Cross mental health professionals. The Red Cross worked closely with subject matter experts from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, to include active duty, National Guard and Reserve commands, in development of the final curriculum.

"The American Red Cross is rooted in a proud tradition of providing support to servicemembers, veterans and their families for more than 100 years," said Sherri L. Brown, sr. vice president, Service to the Armed Forces. "From the front lines to the home front, the Red Cross will continue to help servicemembers and their families receive the services they need into the future. We are thankful that we can be there to help those who have served our nation."

The course provides significant information on resiliency strategies for adults and children. Resiliency is the process of how one quickly recovers from adversity or change. The course also explains the easy steps involved in psychological first aid which involves providing immediate support to people in distr
'/>"/>