INTERVIEW ACTIVITY WITH US SFAC
From the 12th to 21st of
April, the NATO Security Force Assistance Centre of Excellence (NATO SFA COE)
interviewed personnel belonging to the US Security Force Assistance Command and
to the five SFA Brigades.
This activity is an integral part of the wider NATO
SFA COE project on defining the SFA Operator’s profile, which aims to outline
the human and professional requirements, psychological traits and skills of SFA
Trainers/Mentors/Advisers so that they can effectively operate in any
environment and at any operational level.
In this phase of the project, the staff of the
Centre is collecting experiential data through the use of surveys, individual
interviews and focus groups with personnel who have served in SFA activities in
various operating theatres.
As an integral part of the Centre's team, in
support of the project, a psychologist from the Office of Military Psychology
and Psychiatry of the Italian Army General Staff also participated in the
interview, to be able to analyse in further detail the psychological traits of
the future SFA operators.
The interviewees were selected from SFA specialized
organizations of the United States Army, it was a unique occasion to capture
the experience of highly selected and trained operators appointed in units
created to provide SFA. The huge amount of data collected will surely identify
a cornerstone in modelling the SFA operator profile.
The end goal will be to create, as part of a
broader vision of "Human Capital", common and standardized procedures
in selecting and educating the SFA Operators (Advisors, Mentors and Trainers),
based on a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach for the benefit of the entire
NATO community and its partners.