OKINAWA
The Defense Health Agency’s Continuing Education Program Office provides leadership and organizational skills training to all Agency and military treatment facilities’ service members, civilians and contractors (Courtesy of DHA’s Education and Training Directorate (J-7)).

The Defense Health Agency’s Continuing Education Program Office provides leadership and organizational skills training to all Agency and military treatment facilities’ service members, civilians and contractors (Courtesy of DHA’s Education and Training Directorate (J-7)). ()

The Defense Health Agency's Education and Training Directorate (J-7) provides professional and leadership courses to service members, civilians, and contractors within the agency and its military treatment facilities as part of its Enterprise Professional Development Program.

The seven training opportunities available range in topics from leading in a virtual environment to implementing change management. The training targets organizational priorities while meeting the professional needs of DHA's employees.

According to Yolanda Mose´, enterprise professional development department lead, with the transition of military treatment facilities ramping up again, supervisors and those they lead will benefit by attending the next course in the skills-based training series, "Change Management II: Leading People through Change", June 24 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The focus of the training is to assist attendees with developing a change leadership toolkit, assist them to analyze previous actions in the development of new goals.

"We have excellent, qualified instructors to ensure our learners leave with a solid change plan and how to put it into action," Mose' said.

Currently, all courses are offered virtually ensuring the safety of instructors and students within COVID-19 safety protocol. In the future, courses will be offered online and in-person.

Anita Lyons, MTF operations chief for J-7, said “providing training during COVID-19 posed a challenge. However, the division offered training, virtually before the pandemic, her team did a terrific job transitioning to an all-virtual teaching environment."

"We were already offering courses virtually, so that wasn't a significant challenge for my team," Lyons added. The challenge was ensuring they were able to perform their duties remotely in support of our education and training mission and maintaining the same quality, and they did that."

The Skills-Based Training courses provides, leaders, and their subordinates the opportunity to develop leadership skills for stronger and more productive teams.

"All training within the course catalog can be customized to meet the needs of staff across DHA Headquarters and its MTFs," Mose' said. "Additionally, relevant training will be added in the future focusing on improving staff performance and molding the agency's future leaders."

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