I recently ran across a newly published article by Drs. Sissi Ribiero, Keith Renshaw, and Elizbeth Allen titled “Military-related relocation stress and psychological distress in military partners.” I was intrigued by the title, since during my time as a military spouse I found the frequent moves to be one of the most challenging aspects of military life.
The Center for Deployment Psychology and Kennedy Krieger Institute are working collaboratively on a study focused on enhancing evidenced-based treatment outcomes for military children with developmental and behavioral health needs. This project explores telehealth and tele-education feasibility and best practices to increase access to specialty care and to identify programs and service delivery models to enhance the care and well-being of military-connected children. This project include a series of self-paced online courses which include free CEs.
Military families continue to increase in diversity, a fact that is not always well-studied or represented in research studies and the resources and policies that they influence. This blog shares information from a recent review of research studies that examined how military families are defined and represented in mental health and substance abuse research.
Alcohol use disorder within families is a topic with potential impact across subpopulations and is not specific to the population of military families. In fact, although reviews of research suggest that there may be a higher incidence of problematic drinking in some segments (but not all) of the military, the highest rates of problematic drinking seem to be observed in military populations that are inconsistent with military families with children (as factors related to higher rates include those who are single and do not have children; Osborne et al., 2022). Even more explicitly, I’m not aware of any studies which have noted a heightened prevalence of problematic drinking in military families with children versus civilian families with children.
Child and adolescent behavioral health clinicians have always been invested in the mental health needs of our youngest clients. They have a profound understanding of how biology, family, community, and systems impact youth mental health. Mental health needs for children and adolescents continue to rise to an unsurpassed level. Nearly one in five children have a diagnosable mental health condition like depression, anxiety, or ADHD and according to the Centers for Disease Control.