A Look Back on The last SOF Team Room
Aug. 27, 2024
The SOF Team Room is a 2-hour virtual conversation co-hosted by Global SOF Foundation and the Military Special Operations Family Collaborative. A program born of the need for honest conversation following the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Team Room is a dialogue on topics that every service member, veteran, and family will confront.
Leading the Conversation
On Aug. 27th, a small team of SOF community leaders led the conversation as our Team Room co-hosts, keeping the conversation real and relevant. Matt Parrish, Executive Director of Task Force Dagger Foundation, Kevin Stacy, Executive Director and Founder of The Station Foundation, and Bob Newman of The Honor Foundation, all served in special operations. They continue to serve military and special ops veterans through SOF nonprofits. Author and clinical psychologist, Dr. Chris Frueh also helped guide the conversation as a trusted community advocate.
Rally Point was our first segment covering ways special operations veterans and their families find community after service. Finding your tribe sounds like a simple task, but it is one of the biggest challenges facing service members and their families after service. It also has huge implications on success and quality of life.
The second segment of the Team Room was Beyond Exposures. This segment was led by Drs. Joseph Bonvie and Sofia Matta and it addressed the basics of what we know about traumatic brain injury and provided some strategies that can help improve sleep quality. Drs. Bonvie and Matta work with military and special operations service members and vets to heal wounds of war everyday at Home Base, a non-profit dedicated to healing the invisible wounds of war through direct clinical care, wellness, education, and research. From the SOF Community survey, we know a topic of concern for current and former SOF is sleep challenges.
The Team Room wrapped-up with a final segment called Endless Pursuit, which takes on the need for purpose and explores ways to tackle this challenge. Jake Harriman, former Force Recon Marine and founder of More Perfect Union (MPU), joined us along with MPU’s co-founder, Garrett Cathcart, to talk about how everyone can find their footing in service after SOF. They discussed how they came to start MPU and a simple way you can strengthen community wherever you are with their Coffee and Courage Challenge.
Replay and Resources
The replay of the Aug 27 Team Room is now available for the SOF Team Room and can be watched HERE.
Resources provided by our guests include:
From Beyond Exposures and our guests from Home Base
- The Army’s Performance Triad: Perfecting Health through Sleep, Activity, and Nutrition • The Havok Journal
- Health Promotion and Wellness – Sleep:https://www.med.navy.mil/Navy-and-Marine-Corps-Force-Health-Protection-Command/Population-Health/Health-Promotion-and-Wellness/sleep
- Army Press Journal – Sleep Performance: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/November-December-2023/Sleep-Performance
- Managing Sleep After a Concussion: https://health.mil/Reference-Center/Publications/2020/07/31/Management-of-Sleep-Disturbances-Following-ConcussionmTBI-Clinical-Recommendation
- Sleep After Concussion Infographic
- Treating Insomnia Patients
- Insomnia Medications
- Sleep and Performance: Changing the Army’s Sleeplessness Culture
- Army Wellness Center – P3 for All Graphic
From Endless Pursuit and our guests from MPU
Your Voice Matters
If you enjoy the SOF Team Room, look forward to the conversations we start, and have ideas about what you want to see in a future Team Room, please send us a quick email (home@msofc.org) or you can drop your thoughts in this feedback form. Outside of looking to the next event, MSOFC is trying to collect real community data about challenges impacting the special operations community. Please help us hone in on topics that matter and identify where work and resources are needed. In just 5 minutes, your response can help a lot. Check out our survey HERE.
We hope you will join us in November for our first in person Team Room or tune in and join us on Zoom. Get ahead of the crowd and register for the next Team Room at Ft. Liberty on Nov. 20th HERE. If you would like to support the Team Room and help us start these needed community conversations and share effective resources, please consider sponsoring the Team Room. You can learn more about our IMPACT and how you can sponsor a Team Room below.