As some of our community members prepare for postings back to Canada or other new locations, our OUTCAN community is faced with the unprecedented challenge of navigating a posting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Booking hotels, registering kids for school, registering with BGRS, getting your pets back home, these are just a few examples of what needs to be done when preparing your move back to Canada. But, presently in 2020 we now have to navigate our move with a pandemic, “Covid-19”. Your move now has even more questions than answers with so much uncertainty. We have policies and directives that help navigate all these questions but there is no playbook for a pandemic.
So how do we get through a move during COVID-19? During most moves we have advice and guidance from our community and our leaders. In military life we are used to being flexible and adaptive, we are used to adjusting our plans and then readjusting them again. Although this move will be different, we are a Military Community and this is our strength. We can rely on our peers and our leaders to help us get through. Like deployments, taskings and relocations, getting through this move will be about being adaptive and flexible and this is what makes us resilient.
With these uncertain times we can be assured our leaders are working tirelessly to have us return to Canada safely. For those families who have children, we are positive examples to our children, showing them our strength, our resilience and our resourcefulness. Our CAF community members have demonstrated adaptability by finding new virtual ways to reach out to friends and family.
One of the challenges with every move is saying goodbye to the friends who have become our new family over the posting. This is especially true in Europe where, together, we face the challenges of cultural and language differences. Because of COVID-19 restrictions in many locations it has become more challenging to say our farewells in the way we normally would. In spite of the barriers, saying goodbye to our friends is an important part of the process for those leaving and those staying behind.
Although individual and family resilience is critical to military life, how often has community support been a life-saver during a challenge? Communities that normally offer support are challenged due to the need for physical distancing. This is a time when our ability to adapt to adversity will allow us to support members in the midst of postings. We can make a meal and drop it off, take in children for parents without childcare, or have a virtual farewell party. It is our interconnectedness that will best help our community members. If you have members leaving your community, talk with them and be creative in finding ways to help. Even small gestures can make a big difference.
So in conclusion, with this Posting Season kicking into gear this will be our time to utilize our past experience, be resilient with our present obstacles and be prepared for future challenges.