LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) -- Air Combat Command is committed to fighting avoidable loss of life of its Airmen through suicides. As part of the commands continued efforts toward suicide prevention, the vice commander gave his seal of approval for the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training program.
In a Feb 28 letter to ACC commanders, Lt. Gen. William Fraser stated the program - called ASIST for short - gives Airmen a model for suicide intervention and tools to evaluate suicide risk factors.
ASIST is about intervention, said Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Keith Darlington, ACC ASIST program manager. It is not intended to develop suicide experts or therapists. Instead, it focuses on providing Airmen with the ability to recognize potential problems and have the confidence to refer them to the professionals.
Each year, the command chaplains train representatives from each ACC base, said Chaplain Darlington. Those trainees, in-turn become the trainers at each respective ACC base.
The training is open to every Airman, but primarily targets front line supervisors and first sergeants, he said.
During the two-day course, trainees learn about warning signs and risk factors that lead to suicide, such as change of behavior or depression. On the second day, trainees put the skills they learned to the test by role-playing real-life scenarios and receiving feedback from their peers.
The scenarios are hard hitting and diffuse the feeling of Can I really do this? It builds confidence, said Chaplain Darlington.
More than 100 ACC intervention trainers have completed the program since 2001, said Chaplain Darlington. Those trainers have trained more than 3,000 people at different ACC bases.
The ASIST program has already proven effective as a means of suicide prevention buddy care, wrote General Fraser. We are convinced it will save lives in ACC.