ABSTRACT
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have catapulted behavioral health issues into prominence for their beneficial or deleterious contributions to fitness for duty and the performance of active-duty service members. These fitness-for-duty and performance concerns led armed forces leadership to focus on how service members and their families manage stress (i.e., their capacity for adaptive coping or “resiliency”) and to ensure their access to information and resources when they need additional help. This focus has been the stimulus for innovation in the TRICARE Behavioral Health Program. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss those innovations. Some background on the military health system (MHS) and behavioral health issues in the military are presented to provide context for the rationale and development of these innovations.
