Building a Home for Respect: Panel 2: The Role of Families within the Invictus Community
The IGF Conversation is designed to promote the sharing of best practice on a range of relevant subjects within the Invictus community through a combination of either online webinars and/or in person symposia. This iteration of the IGF Conversation will be entitled ‘The Invictus Community: Enabling a Home for Respect’ and draws on the central theme of IG2023 of emphasising the common ground between the military and their respective societies and how they can both support and learn from each other.
The event was moderated by well-known German TV sports commentator and presenter Franziska Schenk who has been working for the German TV Channels ARD and MDR since her retirement from professional speed skating.
Panel 2: The Role of Families within the Invictus Community
- Families continue to play a critical role in the recovery and rehabilitation of our Invictus competitors. At the Conversation, we want to recognise those often-overlooked family members who have significantly contributed in a variety of different ways to their loved one's recovery journey. This can include all components and generations of the family unit from grandparent to parent, and right down through to children.
- Tish Stropes, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Fisher House Foundation, will delve deeper into recognising the lived experiences within the Invictus community and uncover the possible changing dynamics within a family once a member undergoes such a life-changing injury. She will explore specific personal challenges faced by members of our community and provide a space where others can listen and learn from one another.
- Tish will be joined by Head of the Human Factors Research Group from the Dutch National Police and Department of Defense, CMDR Wendy Dorrestijn to explore the findings of her research on families from The Invictus Games The Hague 2020, as well as US veterans and husband and wife, Garrett and Joey Kuwada to touch on their own lived experiences.
- Former Invictus team captain from Team Germany at IG2018 and now IG2023 Ambassador Stefan Huss, along with his wife Evelyn, will also sit on this panel. The couple will touch on their own unique experiences and how sport, in particular Invictus, contributed to Stefan’s recovery journey.