Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) was established in August 2008 by then-Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George W. Casey, Jr., in an effort to address the challenges being faced due to multiple deployments required by persistent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead of focusing only on treatment after the issues arose, Casey wanted to also provide preventative measures to the soldiers, their families and Army civilians to make them stronger on the front end.
[1] CSF Resilience Training was created to give these individuals the life skills needed to better cope with adversity and bounce back stronger from these challenges.
The user then enters an online interactive self-development site called ArmyFit™ that enables soldiers, family members and Army civilians to access experts in each of five dimensions of resilience (physical fitness is added as a dimension), communicate with each other, set personal goals and earn recognition badges as those goals are achieved.
Topics range from "blended families" and "building your teen’s resilience" to "effective communication" and "goal setting".
[2] The Army plans to train 7,100 new MRTs per year in order to reach its goal of one MRT per company Army-wide.
The Deputy Secretary of the Army's Research Facilitation Team has performed and published four technical reports on the effectiveness of CSF2 resilience training.
Also, units that received MRTs at the company level had 60 percent fewer diagnoses of drug & alcohol abuse and 13 percent fewer diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and Posttraumatic stress disorder compared to units that did not receive MRTs at the company level.
[5] CSF2 has been subject to criticism, on its use of scientific evaluation and from activist organizations concerned with advancing religious freedom including atheism.
However, more than a dozen controlled studies have shown that PRP has prevented elevated or clinically relevant levels of depression and anxiety symptoms for a range of populations, including parents and families.
The program works through an emphasis on incorporating the skills into daily life, demonstrating a relevance to real-world situations.
These elements, which define the essence of a person, enable one to build inner strength, make meaning of experiences, behave ethically, persevere through challenges, and be resilient when faced with adversity.
An individual’s spirituality draws upon personal, philosophical, psychological, and/or religious teachings or beliefs, and forms the basis of their character."
[8] Concerns were raised by members of the humanist and atheist community about the remedial training modules for a low score on the GAT's "spiritual fitness" component.
