By Justin Creech
Staff writer
Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Army Community Service, Army Family Action Program has a new online option for active-duty Soldiers, Reserve, National Guard, retirees, Department of the Army civilians and Families to submit quality of life concerns to the garrison and on to the Military District of Washington.

The new software, referred to as the AFAP Issue Management System, replaces the annual AFAP symposium and will help ACS save money.

“The option for AFAP for 2013 is digital,” said Faitheleen Henderson, ACS Army Volunteer Corps manager. “We do want the Fort Belvoir community to utilize the online process for submitting any quality of life concerns it may have. We just looked for a way to do the program without spending a whole lot of money.”

People can submit an issue to the website through mid-May.

To submit a quality of life issue online, members of Army One Source should go to the Web address www.myarmyonesource.com, then select the “Login” button then log in. New users must create a new account by selecting the “Login” button, once on the sign in page, select the “Register Now” button and following the prompts.

Once logged in, users need to select “Family Programs and Services,” and select “Army Family Action Plan Issues Management System” in the drop-down menu. Select “Submit Issue” and enter your Army affiliation and location to proceed.

The issue will first be sent to Fort Belvoir Garrison Commander, Col. Gregory D. Gadson. He will make a determination on whether or not the issue should be sent to MDW.

“Anything he deems should be pushed to MDW, he’ll say, ‘Push that up,’” said Henderson. “Once you get an issue into the MDW level, the process is much the same as the local. So, if they can get the issue past MDW, it will end up at the Department of the Army level.”

In past years, symposium delegates gathered in groups and presented the quality of life concerns they deem most important to the garrison commander and garrison command sergeant major. Henderson said there should be no concern about whether or not the issues deemed most important by delegates are being reviewed by Gadson because there is no symposium.

Even with the symposium, the garrison commander still decides what issues are most important to send to MDW.

“It was the garrison commander’s decision to look at and deem what quality of life concern is the priority,” said Henderson. “From there he could say, ‘I like this but I feel, looking at the wider scope, that this would be a better quality of life issue and has a better chance of reach DA.’”

The new system should not concern anyone, according to Henderson, because issues are still going to receive proper consideration. And ACS is saving money in the process.

“We’ve initiated this system because it saves money and we don’t have to worry about taking care of delegates for two or three days,” said Henderson. “All issues received will go up to Col. Gadson and he’ll dictate how he wants to handle that. If he decides the issue should be pushed up, he’ll say for us to do so.”