BOULDER - In 2000, Elizabeth Hawkins and her husband, Stephen Robinson, were holding a series of stress-management seminars throughout the Denver/Boulder area.

"We were seeing a stress epidemic in every sector of society, where people just continued to go on functioning and coping with it. (They were) accepting how stressed-out their lives had become," Hawkins said.

But after 9/11 and the start of the war in Iraq, the couple soon saw another, more imminent need for returning veterans and their families.

Hawkins and Robinson brought together a team of stress and post-trauma specialists to create ONE Freedom Inc., a Boulder-based nonprofit organization that provides free seminars and workshops to help veterans and their families manage stress and attain trauma recovery through easy-to-learn techniques.

After getting nonprofit status in March 2006, the couple received a grant of $850,000 last December from an anonymous donor-sponsored fund run under the umbrella of the California Community Foundation. This funding source was particularly looking for nonprofits assisting both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

While ONE Freedom offers free "Strength after Service" training sessions throughout Colorado, the organization primarily targets areas located near military installations so that family members of vets can participate. Rural areas - where vets and their families may not have a support system in place - are included in the nonprofit's outreach program as well.

"So much emphasis is on the vets, but when they go to war the family goes to war too," Hawkins said. "If we do a soldier training session, we tailor it to the family members as well. A lot of these issues are universal, and all of us will go through them to some degree."

In its training sessions, retreats and seminars, ONE Freedom focuses on strength and balance, Hawkins said.

"If you have an issue with stress, it's equated with being a weak service member. There's a huge stigma around it, which keeps people from seeking assistance," Hawkins said. "The most important thing is to take the emphasis off the stress part and put it on the strength part. We focus on self-management and regulation."

Hawkins and her team believe that anyone who goes through the extreme conditions of combat will naturally have changes in the brain and central nervous system. Once these conditions are normalized - perceived as a normal reaction - then actionable, realistic steps can be taken toward healing.

"So much of this is considered a mental behavioral disorder that's being couched in the psychological behavioral realm, but we don't see this as a mental behavioral disorder," she said. "Most people who suffer from this are getting a 20-minute talk-therapy session and maybe a prescription. We naturalize this as something that anyone would go through."

ONE Freedom team members are a mix of former military and civilian personnel, ranging from Dr. Robert Scaer, a trauma therapist from the Boulder Community Hospital Mapleton Center, to Dan Taslitz, a marine who served in Fallujah, Iraq.

This spring, ONE Freedom conducted a successful series of two-hour workshops and toured for eight weeks along the Front Range from Longmont to Colorado Springs. The nonprofit is currently offering this introductory workshop to any community that requests it.

In addition, ONE Freedom will offer a daylong workshop on Aug. 11 and 12 in Pikes Peak National Forest. A full weekend retreat will be offered later in the fall.

ONE Freedom also plans to implement two new workshops - "Warrior's Family" and "Warrior's Journey" - in the next few months. Both are trauma-release writing programs created specifically for veterans and their families.

For now, the nonprofit is being funded by the grant received last December, as well as private donations from both the general public and the business community. A sponsorship program is being set up where donors can sponsor a soldier or their family member for $150, which covers all expenses for an intensive one-day workshop. Other levels of sponsorship are also available to cover weekend and weeklong retreats.

Hawkins and her team hope that the Boulder office of ONE Freedom may eventually serve as a model for satellite offices and veteran's retreat facilities throughout the county.

"If people want to go beyond the yellow ribbon and do something to help veterans and their families, these trainings are a great outlet," Hawkins said.

ONE Freedom Inc.

PO Box 7418
Boulder, CO 80306
303-444-1221
www.onefreedom.org
Elizabeth Hawkins, executive director
Employees: Eight trainers, four administration staff members
Primary Service: Stress-management training for veterans and their families
Founded: 2006