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IDS: People helping people

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Jonathan Bass
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  Representatives from all of the Shaw AFB helping agencies, including Mental Health, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, and more, meet once a month to troubleshoot and discuss potential issues on Shaw.

This group is called the Integrated Delivery System or IDS for short. Their goal is to help Team Shaw members with any potential problems they may have.

The problem is that most Team Shaw members do not know that this group exists, said Karan Godette, the IDS director at Shaw. The biggest thing that people should know is IDS is there and desires to help.

The IDS is more like a network between the agencies, added Godette. If an Airman or Soldier is at Mental Health and has a question that Mental Health cannot answer, Mental Health is then able to direct that Airman or Soldier to someone who does have the answer.

Chaplain (Maj.) Matthew Boarts, the deputy wing chaplain with the 20th Fighter Wing, has been a part of IDS at multiple bases. He has seen the benefits of having an organized system of communication between the helping agencies that the IDS provides.

"The genesis of the whole system was suicide prevention," Boarts said. "Prior to that, suicide intervention was seen as a medical intervention, and we realized it's got to be a community intervention."

What happens is that the helping agencies gather once a month as ordered by Air Force Instruction 90-501, Community Action Information Board and Integrated Delivery System, Godette said.

At these meetings representatives of each helping agency discuss issues that have been brought to their attention and how they can solve them, Boarts said.

Commonly also at these meetings is the CAIB, which is directed by the wing commander, Boarts continued. This board looks at base trends and then delegates to the IDS the task of figuring out how trends can be stopped or pushed to success.

Godette is the new permanent director of the IDS.

In the past, the director position was shifted every couple of years from one helping agency to another, said Godette.

Now with it being a permanent position, she can begin to focus on making sure that the agencies are marketing themselves out to the people of Shaw, she concluded.