TEAM RED WHITE & BLUE INC

Team RWB's mission is to enrich the lives of America's veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity. Our programs are designed to create a number of first and second-order positive outcomes.

- Improve the military to civilian transition by enabling authentic, consistent interactions and supportive relationships
- Inspire veterans to remain physically fit and active after leaving the military
- Promote healthy lifestyles and participation in positive community activities
- Provide leadership opportunities for veterans to strengthen their respective communities
- Reduce instances of isolation, depression, and anxiety among transitioning veterans

Team RWB counters the effects of isolation and misunderstanding by building a bridge and welcoming all community members to join us. This bridge is part of the formula that builds wellbeing in veterans. As active duty service members begin their journey to veteran status, we engage with the lowest barriers to entry to ensure their future success. Our programs create opportunities for them to connect with others and help motivate them down a healthy path, providing genuine, authentic relationships with other Team RWB members and members of their community. We stand ready in more than 200 markets across the nation to assist the nearly 200,000 service members that separate every year, in their enrichment and transition success.

Team RWB takes a proactive and inclusive approach to addressing the challenges of veteran reintegration. We believe that an ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure. By involving veterans in active, positive programs, we provide the purpose, camaraderie, and identity that veterans often miss upon leaving the military.

Our local, regional, and national programs provide many opportunities for veterans to get, or remain, connected to fellow veterans and supportive members of their community. This connection is critical in making the military to civilian transition and becoming a productive member of their new community. We've found that sports, fitness, and community involvement are very effective ways to build meaningful relationships. They provide a common and healthy platform for veterans and civilians to connect and build mutual respect and understanding. In additional to being a great way to connect, these activities are therapeutic in and of themselves. Physical activity has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression while improving physical health.

Our data shows that increased engagement in Team RWB activities equals increased levels of community engagement and enrichment in a member’s life. To grow veteran engagement, our chapters must host more quality events to meet the needs of their local veterans – and with increased availability to data, our team is supporting chapters to ensure efficient and effective veteran engagement. Through our Annual Survey, our Enriched Life Scale and our Salesforce data, we can analyze member feedback and utilization rates at the local level alongside enrichment data to maximize veteran outcomes.

Chapter and Community Program
The CCP has been in existence since Team RWB was founded in 2010. Our Chapter and Community Program (CCP) connects our more than 155,000 members in 200+ communities around the country. It is through this nationally developed, locally delivered program that we stand ready to serve all veterans where they live. To counter the ill effects often seen in transitioning veterans, our local model delivers an immediate sense of belonging for all veterans, regardless of their stage in veteran status or life. The CCP welcomes veterans to Team RWB within their local chapter and ensures their immediate access to events, consisting of a myriad of options to meet the veterans’ needs. The CCP delivers consistent, inclusive, local opportunities for veterans and the community to connect through physical, social and volunteer service activity. They host weekly fitness activities (running, biking, yoga, functional fitness, team sports, etc.), monthly social events, and participate in volunteer service projects together. These activities are the core of Team RWB's mission and are led by nearly 2,000 volunteer Eagle leaders around the country, every day. Through program maturation, we have created an environment of and by our members. Our network is based on the richness of wellness, acceptance and belonging where veterans engage in their community. We give veterans the resources they need to connect with solutions, and permission to be inspired to make a difference in their own life, personally and professionally, and the lives of others.

Eagle Leadership and Development Program
The ELDP begin in 2015 and has provided resources for our leaders to refine their leadership skills to further empower themselves in their lives, and Team RWB members in their Chapters. This critical program builds strong leaders to fuel a stronger organization through stronger Chapters and communities. In addition to the regular training provided to volunteer leaders, the ELDP is anchored by a series of in-person Eagle Leader Experiences (ELEs). The ELE delivers timely support, connections and tools to efficiently and effectively deliver Team RWB’s life changing programs at the local level to maximize positive veteran outcomes. Our ELE's help Eagle Leaders feel connected to each other, to the region and the organization. They leave with a greater desire to utilize each other as future resources, to not only help grow their Chapters’ outcomes, but to take advantage of shared third-party referral resources in the community. Eagle Leader 101 material is a focus at Academies especially, focusing on basic chapter management, budget, leadership teams/responsibilities.

The Enriched Life Scale (ELS) as an instrument designed by our Eagle Research and Innovation Center, led by our Research Director, Caroline Angel, Ph.D. The ELS measures an “enriched life”, makes a contribution to behavioral medicine, psychology, and health assessment more broadly. It was the only instrument Team RWB could identify that incorporates measures of physical health (to include physical activity duration, intensity, and strength training) and mental health coupled with more frequently implemented measures of psychological well-being (relationships with others, meaning/purpose in life). Veteran thought leaders working with social scientists developed the ELS and developed a scale that measures an “enriched life”. The five constructs were “Genuine Relationships”; “Sense of Purpose”; “Engaged Citizenship”; “Mental Health”; and “Physical Health”.

Team RWB designed the scale based on a thorough review of the clinical literature and existing psychometric instruments. By interacting with diverse non-veteran community regularly through Team RWB activities, veterans and their families cultivate more social links that translate to greater access to local resources, knowledge, and opportunities in the community. Our increasing ability to measure and track outcomes will help Team RWB grow as an evidence-based health promotion program that has the potential to affect daily life of Americans for years to come. Our data shows that increased engagement in Team RWB activities and community equals increased levels of enrichment in a members’ life. We are learning that in order to continue to grow veteran engagement, our chapters have to host more quality events that are meeting their needs – and our chapters are doing just that. Through not only our research data, but our Salesforce data, we have found that consistent physical fitness events are most efficient way to engage our veterans, which in turn leads to improved physical, mental and emotional health.

In August 2018 our Enriched Life Scale was published in the Journal for Translational Behavioral Medicine, which can be read at https://academic.oup.com/tbm/article/8/4/554/5055095. Additionally, in December 2018, Team RWB was published in Preventive Medicine Reports. This showcased results from a Team RWB study that identified differences in obesity, BMI and exercise frequency in our members throughout the country. It was the first report to nationally evaluate regional differences in veteran obesity. Our research shows regionally where obesity among veterans is most prevalent around the country, so we may adjust our programming.

This article can be read at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335518301803?via%3Dihub#bbb0010