Office of the Inspector General- Teaching and Training

Teaching and Training & Readiness Assistance Visits (RAV)
 
Teaching and Training
According to AR 20-1 para 4-1a.
“Teaching and training as both an embedded and independent function. Teaching and training is the fourth of the Army IG system’s four functions and is traditionally embedded in the first three—inspections, assistance, and investigations. While inspecting, assisting, or investigating, IGs enhance the warfighting and readiness capabilities of the Army by teaching and training commanders, Soldiers, and Civilians at all levels on current Army policy and doctrine. Current operational tempo and the demands of the sustainable readiness model (SRM) are prompting IGs to perform teaching and training as a separate function independent of the other three functions. This teaching and training approach helps units to re-establish internal systems following redeployment and to serve as a critical substitute for experience when commanders have lost their more experienced officers and NCOs and need help training new staffs and subordinate commanders. The Readiness Assistance Visit is an example of how IGs—who are selected based on their experience, knowledge, demonstrated maturity, wisdom, and judgment—are ideally suited to assist unit commanders in the early phases of SRM. Specifically, they help commanders re-establish internal systems that have withered following redeployment and the reassignment of experienced leaders (see The Teaching and Training Guide available from TIGS or the school’s website at https://tigs-online.ignet.army.mil/). An IG’s knowledge of the Army also increases while serving as an IG due to the ex-tensive research and analysis that IG duties require. As a result, IGs develop a broader perspective of the Army that few Soldiers in other duty positions attain. The benefit of this broad perspective is that IGs can incorporate teaching and training into all aspects of their duties. For example, when IGs notice that inspected personnel are unaware of regulatory requirements, they explain the requirements and the reason the Army established those requirements. Additionally, IGs pass on lessons learned and good practices observed during other inspections, assistance visits, and teaching and training sessions. During these current periods of transformation, organizational change, and high operational pace, the IG teaching and training function has become more critical than ever as IGs ensure that Army leaders have a complete understanding of current Army policies and procedures.”
 
 
Readiness Assistance Visits (RAV)
According to the Teaching and Training Guide.
 
“Readiness Assistance Visits: As part of the Teaching and Training function, IGs can conduct Readiness Assistance Visits (RAVs) to assist units of all types as those units reside in the Prepare Module. RAVs allow IGs to visit a unit and teach incoming personnel how to inspect their organizations and re-establish systems that have withered in the face of the post-deployment "starburst" effect. However, RAVs are not IG Inspections. IGs teach the unit's staff members about the Organizational Inspection Program (OIP) as outlined in Army Regulation 1-201 and the organization's inspection responsibilities within the OIP. IGs (with augmenting subject-matter experts) will then train the Commanders and staff members how to conduct Command and Staff Inspections by teaching them about such things as current standards, how to develop evaluation tools (checklist, questionnaires, etc.), how to plan an inspection, and how to conduct an inspection. The IGs will then shadow the staff members as they use these evaluation tools to assess the unit's readiness at that point in time. Along the way, the IG may demonstrate how to gather the information and offer best practices that improve each inspector's efficiency and knowledge. Since the unit's own staff members are conducting the inspection, the information gathered is not an IG record. At the end of these normally week-long RAVs, the IGs and augmenting RAV team members will help the staff develop an out-briefing to the Commander that allows that Commander to make an informed readiness judgment about where the unit's readiness stands at that point in the Prepare Module. RAVs cannot and will not substitute for actual Command Inspections (specifically initial and subsequent command inspections) and Staff Inspections. IGs are strictly trainers in their RAV capacity and will not render a readiness judgment to the supported Commander or to the IG's Directing Authority.”