By the Numbers - July 13, 2015
26
The number of Department of Defense (DoD) policies "related to family resilience" as of early 2015, according to a new RAND Corporation report -- Family Resilience in the Military.
Despite an increasing emphasis on this issue, RAND researchers found that there is no "standard and universally accepted definition of family resilience," which hinders DoD policymaking in this area. Following a literature review and a look at current DoD policies related to family resilience, the researchers recommend that DoD adopt the following definition:
"the ability of a family to respond positively to an adverse situation and emerge from the situation feeling strengthened, more resourceful, and more confident than its prior state."
RAND also made the following recommendations to DoD:
- Designate a governing or oversight body to manage the overall Department of Defense (DoD) family-resilience enterprise.
- Adopt an official DoD definition and model of family resilience.
- Develop a "road map" that follows established programs, policies, and definitions, ensuring that all stakeholders know their role and how they contribute to the success of the overall family-resilience enterprise.
- Encourage a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI) across DoD and within family-resilience programs.
- Develop a system of coordination between programs to avoid redundancy and to encourage CQI.
- Engage the research community to identify what aspects of family resilience matter most for best practices in military family-resilience programs.
26
The number of Department of Defense (DoD) policies "related to family resilience" as of early 2015, according to a new RAND Corporation report -- Family Resilience in the Military.
Despite an increasing emphasis on this issue, RAND researchers found that there is no "standard and universally accepted definition of family resilience," which hinders DoD policymaking in this area. Following a literature review and a look at current DoD policies related to family resilience, the researchers recommend that DoD adopt the following definition:
"the ability of a family to respond positively to an adverse situation and emerge from the situation feeling strengthened, more resourceful, and more confident than its prior state."
RAND also made the following recommendations to DoD:
- Designate a governing or oversight body to manage the overall Department of Defense (DoD) family-resilience enterprise.
- Adopt an official DoD definition and model of family resilience.
- Develop a "road map" that follows established programs, policies, and definitions, ensuring that all stakeholders know their role and how they contribute to the success of the overall family-resilience enterprise.
- Encourage a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI) across DoD and within family-resilience programs.
- Develop a system of coordination between programs to avoid redundancy and to encourage CQI.
- Engage the research community to identify what aspects of family resilience matter most for best practices in military family-resilience programs.