Army Wellness Center Reopens

By Bryan Spann, Fort Meade Public Affairs

Army Wellness Centers provide a variety of preventive health programs and services designed to promote healthy lifestyles and improve the overall well-being of active duty service members, their family members, DoD Civilians and military retirees. COVID-19 impacted AWC operations, causing many to suspense operations.

The Fort Meade Wellness Center, closed since March, re-opened its doors Aug. 31.  Although the center is physically reopening, the services will continue to be a mix of on-site and virtual, according to AWC officials.

“We're only coming back with restricted services, those that are lower risk of transmission and {ensuring] people feel safe when they come to see us,” said Andrea Navarro, Wellness Center lead health educator at Fort Meade.  “We are offering the 'Bod Pod' which has been highly requested the last couple of months – people are ready to know their body composition numbers.

“We’re also doing metabolic testing, and then we'll have our stress management sessions as well,” Navarro continued.  “One-on-one health coaching, we've been doing over the phone, virtually.  We'll be offering it in-person as well [for] now, but we will still have the virtual option.  We are also offering virtual classes as well.”

Although not as many on-site appointments will be available as before, Navarro says, clients probably won't notice the difference.

“We'll have one health educator each day that's focused on virtual appointments and assisting with cleaning, making sure that the space is disinfected between each client, and doing additional cleaning measures,” said the health educator.  “But we also got an additional health educator right before we started teleworking.  So, it's not going to feel restricted to our clients because we'll be providing the same number of appointments each day that we were before we left.”

If you do have an on-site appointment, you'll be screened for coronavirus upon arrival, Navarro said.

“Masks are strictly enforced,” she emphasized.  “You have to wear a mask to come into the building.  It has to be a CDC approved mask with no valves on the outside.  We're practicing social distancing as well.  We're taking the safety measures very seriously.  If anyone has symptoms or known exposure, they should not be coming in for appointments.  We'll be screening at our front desk at the beginning of all appointments and anybody not meeting the requirements will not be seen.”

More information on services available plus the daily class schedule can be found on the AWC Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AWCFortMeade).