Caring for People forum set to begin

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Nathan Maysonet
  • 47th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Laughlin's annual Caring for People forum is April 10 at Club XL.

The event is open to all of Team XL and offers participants the chance to speak out on issues and concerns that are affecting their lives on base.

"The event is an opportunity for people to identify areas where they feel something is lacking," said Aliyah Negley, 47th Flying Training Wing community support coordinator. "The intent is to highlight and talk about these areas and to express those concerns to leadership, it's very solution focused."

Participants at the forum will be broken into working groups covering topics such as family support, deployment support, spouse communication, housing support and health and wellness. Groups will be led by facilitators and have subject matter experts on hand to answer questions.

Ideas generated at the forum will be further developed for review by leadership. What cannot be resolved at the base level will be voted on and moved up to Air Education and Training Command with the best ideas reaching the Air Force level forum.

"The ideas and issues brought up by participants at past Caring for People events helped to develop positions such as the school liaison officer and programs like the Exceptional Family Member Program," said Negley. "They were created to better support our people and were accomplished by people supporting this event."

Last year, Laughlin's forum voted on 23 issues that leadership worked to address locally. Issues unresolvable at the base level were sent to AETC where they were reviewed and briefed to the Community Action Information Board. AETC bases as a whole submitted 40 issues to the AETC Caring for People forum and Laughlin's concern for standardization of secondary education made it to the Air Force level forum where it is currently being addressed.

The event is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. and will last until 8:30 p.m. Childcare is available upon request, and food will be available for attendees.

Registrations forms for the event are located at the wing's plans and programs office in the wing headquarters building and are due by April 5.

For more information on the Caring for People forum contact Negley at 298-9344.