Supporting those who support military families

By Alex Baird
Chief, NGB Family Program

This is my second National Volunteer Workshop in this capacity, and I’m excited about this year’s agenda and guest speakers. How often do you get Adm. Mike G. Mullen and Gen. George W. Casey Jr. to both speak at your conference? This shows me that our senior leaders are dedicated to supporting our families and the volunteers who help them.

The National Volunteer Workshop is an annual event that gives us an opportunity to recognize the contribution of our volunteers and provide them with training to more effectively support our Guardmembers and their families. There are more than 40,000 volunteers, including family members, veterans and Guardmembers, that comprise our National Guard Family Programs network. The workshop also provides a forum to train our National Guard personnel on how to better utilize the service of volunteers. I especially appreciate the opportunity the workshop provides to receive feedback from the 50 states, 3 territories, and DC on how we can better serve them.

The purpose of my blog today is to provide an opportunity for you to give me feedback on how we are doing and to also tell me what your needs are and how we can better serve you. As families experience multiple deployments, their needs change and new challenges emerge. Only by knowing what those challenges are can we work together to address them.

To learn more, listen live to the scheduled DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable with Alex Baird at 2 p.m., on Tuesday, August 3, 2010.