A mental health campaign has been launched for US Navy personnel, their families and support service groups at the Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain.
The campaign, a five-part series that started on Tuesday, is being organised by the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) Religious Ministries Team and features topics including best practices for navigating mental health, building the human connection, creating positive environments and effective leadership.
Participants connected with counsellors and mental health officers from Fleet and Family Support Centre Bahrain, Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Unit Bahrain, Military and Family Life Counsellors (MLFC) and licensed social workers.
“The overall goal of the event is to help the leadership continue to develop a deliberate mental health strengthening strategy, through the information promulgated in alignment with Chief of Naval Operations Quality of Service initiative, while building collaboration between the Bahrain mental health entities,” Fifth Fleet deputy chaplain Commander Devon Foster said.
He added that there were more than 20 designated caregivers on the island, including chaplains, MFLCs, licensed social workers, psychologists, as well as doctors and nurses at Serene Psychiatry Hospital in Juffair.
“While our services as providers can overlap, our session shows how each caregiver cares for and provides unique amenities within their portfolio,” he said.
NSA Bahrain’s mental health roadmap outlines key resources available for personnel seeking support, ranging from connecting with friends, family, and chains of command, to seeking support from counsellors and doctors off-base.
During the event, Fifth Fleet fore surgeon Captain Jorge Brito discussed the importance of brain health, emphasising risk factors and ways to promote its healthy function.
The Mental Health Campaign will continue with Session 2.
“By understanding these services, each person can seek assistance from one or more of these professionals to meet their needs,” said Cdr Foster.
“If the help can best be served through another provider, the person will be referred to whomever can give them the care they need.”
The US Navy in Bahrain expanded its mental healthcare programme in 2022 for its personnel and their family members so that they could avail local treatment rather than fly out to the US. The move was part of a two-year pilot programme launched to provide additional services to personnel and their families stationed in Bahrain.
If experiencing acute mental health problems, navy personnel and their dependants receive up to a month of inpatient care, as well as intensive outpatient care.
The change in policy regarding mental health followed a spate of suicides.
At least seven sailors assigned to aircraft carrier USS George Washington have committed suicide – four in 2021 and three in 2019 and 2020.
The GDN reported that the US Navy’s highest-ranking officer in Bahrain, Vice Admiral Scott Stearney, 58, was found dead at his home in Janabiya in December 2018.
An inquiry confirmed suicide as the cause of death.
Two more US sailors assigned to the US Fifth Fleet died in the same month following which the US Navy launched a series of measures to tackle mental health issues.
In 2022, the revamped Waterfront Resiliency Centre was inaugurated at the Juffair base to offer additional services and will have a team of chaplains and counsellors.
Workshops on mental health and suicide awareness and marriage counselling were among the services and programmes offered.
According to the US Defence Department’s latest quarterly report released last November (covering 2023 calendar year) the number of suicides among service members reached 523 (including 363 on active duty), which was more than 493 in 2022.
Most service members who died by suicide according to the report were young, enlisted men.
Loneliness, missing family and working and living in a strange environment also affect the youngest sailors. They can suffer difficulty concentrating, apathy, feelings of detachment, loss of appetite, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response and sleep disturbances.
Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and its estimated 8,000 military members and their dependents.
sandy@gdnmedia.bh
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