As spouses of servicemembers and Department of the Army civilians gathered around the horseshoe-shaped table for the third Spouse Resiliency Academy to begin on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, coordinators and instructors greeted the newcomers to the four-day course at the Family Resource Center, May 17 to 20.

The program was established to help the military family better cope with the stresses of life in the military.

"The goal is that we help the whole family become more resilient," said Jo Dempsey, Family Services Program director, Army Community Services.

The itinerary included applied suicide intervention training and also covered everything that is part of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. CSF is tool to help Soldiers effectively and positively communicate with their families, leaders and peers through a series of questions and offers modules to help the Soldier learn to adapt to life's challenges.

"Spouse Resiliency Academy teaches fundamentals to empower spouses to maximize their potential and improve their communication and listening skills," Dempsey said.

One attendee, Sabrina Wright, an Air Force wife, has seen her husband deployed six times in nine years. She said she attended the class to learn different methods to cope with stress and to become more resilient in the face of the many challenges that she will continue to overcome as a military spouse.

"It is making me look more at myself and to rely on myself more than my husband," Wright said.

Dempsey agreed that the course causes the students to look inside themselves to find the resilience that life in the military requires.

"It's a self-enlightenment that they (the spouses) get; self-awareness too," Dempsey said.

The Master Resiliency Trainers teach the students different coping methods as well as ways to deal with stress by thinking about problems from different perspectives.

"The underlying secret to resiliency is thinking accurately," said Master Sgt. George Hedspeth, senior MRT coordinator, I Corps. The curriculum is designed to give spouses a better understanding of what their husband or wife experiences and to develop communication skills to overcome issues before they become a problem by recognizing an emotional trigger and stopping a negative reaction before it occurs.

As a part of the course, spouses use a survey based, self-assessment tool and an authentic happiness assessment test to identify their personal character strengths.

Dempsey stated that the effects of the course could not be measured because once the students leave the course, they aren't tracked in their daily lives.

"We may never know that a spouse who went through this training - because of what he learned or she learned in here - used it at home and avoided a tragedy," Dempsey said.

"With spouses taking the same resiliency training as Soldiers, we hope they will take their new skills home and use them to improve their communication skills and strengthen the bonds within their families," Dempsey said.

Anyone interested in attending the Spouse Resiliency Academy should contact Jo Dempsey at 253-967-9977 or e-mail jo.dempsey@us.army.mil.