Blog posts with the tag "Military Families"

Staff Perspective: Civilian Community Support for Military-Connected Families - Thinking Outside of the Box

We know that military families are resilient. They are faced with many stressors that non-military families do not face (deployments, multiple Permanent Change of Stations (PCS), and repeated school transitions for children). Many military families navigate these stressors with minimal difficulty. While military families can navigate these challenges, there are things we as a civilian communities should do to support them. Thinking outside of the box can provide the opportunity to support military-connected families in our communities.

By the Numbers: 29 March 2021

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The number of times, on average, that a military child dependent transfers schools prior to high school graduation, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- K-12 Education: U.S. Military Families Generally Have the Same Schooling Options as Other Families and Consider Multiple Factors When Selecting Schools.

Staff Perspective: Engaging Military-Connected Couples in Treatment

During my 20+ years working in the mental health field, I have worked with multiple military-connected couples. Often, the entry point for couples’ work was a spouse who had been given an ultimatum about working on resolving marital conflict or face separation/divorce. In one study by Pflieger et al. (2018), researchers found that while military couples face additional stressors, the majority of marital dissatisfaction can be explained by stressors not unique to the military service. In my work with couples, I found this to be true. While many of the stressors may have surfaced during their military service (i.e., conflict regarding parental responsibilities during the deployment cycle), the stressors themselves are also found in civilian couples

Staff Perspective: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Military

Providing therapy to military-connected clients with PTSD during the pandemic has raised my awareness about the intersection between trauma symptoms, COVID-19-related anxiety and distress, and military values that can help individuals cope with the outbreak like having good situational awareness, taking individual responsibility, applying discipline, and striving for the larger mission to maintain safety and protect others. My clinical work has also led me to think more about how the pandemic is impacting military members and their families overall.

Staff Perspective: Learning from Military Family Resilience During COVID-19

Dr. Marjorie Weinstock

Family resilience is also a topic that my colleagues and I have discussed a great deal over the past few months in regards to the current pandemic. So, my interest was piqued when I recently ran across an article by Dr. Heather Prime and colleagues in American Psychologist focusing on how to encourage family resilience in the wake of COVID-19-related stressors. One of the first things I noticed was that the conceptual framework that they use is very similar to the one we describe when talking about military family resilience in our training events.

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