Warriors At Ease

What have we done so far?
With your support from last year, this is what we accomplished in 2015:

~Advancing a long-term plan for offering standardized yoga and meditation classes across the full spectrum of health care in all DoD healthcare facilities and bases;

~ Received a $24K grant from Disabled Veterans National Foundation to develop a new webinar program, "Yoga and Meditation for Military Sexual Trauma". The program is scheduled to launch in March 2016.

~ Formed a partnership with several Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) to offer “Bridging the Gap” retreats for family caregivers of veterans and active duty service members who suffer from visible and invisible wounds of war. At least 4 retreats will be offered yearly around the country. Funded by the Walter Reed Foundation;

~ Formed a partnership with Manhattan College and Sivananda Ashram (Bahamas) to offer on-campus and 4.5 day retreats to freshman veterans at Manhattan College to offer stress reduction tools to enhance academic success.

~ Developed a new program at Ft. Meade, MD in partnership with the Behavioral Health Department. Two WAE-trained teachers offer weekly "Yoga for Resilience" classes for service members and their families.

~ Currently staffing a new program at the USO Warrior and Family Center at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for two weekly WAE classes.

~ WAE is training yoga instructors for a large, new yoga for a back pain study sponsored by Boston University

~ Eastern Foundry, a veteran-owned business incubator and accelerator, selected WAE as a finalist in a national competition for most innovative approach to addressing PTSD. WAE was one of 14 finalists in a three-day event designed to cross-fertilize social entrepreneurs working to support veterans.

~ Invited to participate as subject matter experts in a national conference, sponsored by the Yoga Service Council, to create a “Best Practices” book that will be distributed to VAs nationally to support the integration of yoga and meditation into VA facilities.

~ Robin Carnes was a speaker at the first annual “Service Member to Civilian” National Conference. Response was very positive and WAE is slated to play a bigger role in this conference next year.

~ Kaiser Permanente featured WAE in a training film, which is shown to thousands of healthcare providers nationally. The film’s purpose is to highlight the unique healthcare needs of veterans transitioning into civilian life. In the film, WAE trainers and trainees are shown doing yoga and meditation as a way to promote health, well-being, and resiliency. (To view the film, please visit: “Warriors At Ease Training – filmed by Kaiser Permanente” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNX0IwDjQ7s.