Making it in the MilLife

At a recent conference held by NIH, DoD, and the VA, it was apparent that people are beginning to understand that the [mental] health of the family and the service member are interrelated. You can’t care for the individual without caring about and taking care of families and caregivers.  To a military spouse, this seems so intuitive that I had to remind myself that I was in an auditorium full of practioners who need to hear statements like that.  After all, how effective can they be in their jobs if they don’t understand the framework within which they work to effectively support military families?

BG Sutton, the Director of the Defense Centers of Excellence did a great job of charting the course for the day that would follow, charging the audience with the task of working together to identify knowledge gaps and work together to close them.  Mrs. Patti Shinseki followed sharing vignettes of her life with General Shinseki to set the stage for the doctors and scientists in understanding military families. Gen Shinseki was wounded early on his career and headed out of the Army when he received word that as pilot program, the Army was allowing Wounded Warriors to stay in.  She shared powerfully compelling memories of their lives together and impressed upon everyone present that families are critical/crucial factor of the force and addressed some of the issues we all face, “Myth that subsequent separations/deployments get easier is just a myth…it doesn’t get easier.”  Mrs. Shinseki closed with a discussion of the Military Child Education Coalition’s Living in the New Normal initiative: Helping Children Thrive through Good and Challenging Times.

The day started strong and never faltered.  We were treated to a day of incredible presentations by leaders in their field.  It was borderline information overload, but after 9 hours of back to back presentations and breakout sessions, I came away with some significant takeaways.

• There is a shift in deployment from occasional to continuous events.  It’s widely recognized that it is now a matter of “when” you deploy as opposed to “if”.
• Many studies out there studying the corrosive impact of stress due to multiple deployments during wartime.
• No studies of impact on infants and toddlers, only anecdotal information.
• Very little info on impact of children due to injury of parent during wartime.
• Military families are not homogenous, Dr. Cozza encourages differentiating groups further depending on experience.
• Dr. Cozza is from the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
• Very little info on impact of children due to injury of parent during wartime.
• For children of wounded warriors, self concept of “idealized parent image” is challenged.
• Trauma response is a process, not an event. It has to be constantly monitored
• Learned more information about a Millenium Cohort Study centered around long term health in light of exposure to military concerns and deployments.
• Millenium Cohort Study on spouses and stress launching 2010. Anticipate report out to DoD by 2012.
• The VA is shifting it’s mission: Focusing on Families and Caregivers of Veterans with Trauma.
• VA’s purchased 200,000 copies of Talk, Listen and Connect for distribution to VA centers nationwide.
• Marriage and family counseling has been added to services for family members of all veterans eligible for VA care.
• Information on VA’s changing population – more than 212,000 females have been deployed during OIF/OEF.
• Half of the troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan come from Guard/Reserve community
• VA’s also doing work on stigma as a barrier to getting mental health care.
• Dr.Chandra briefed the RAND/NMFA study- effects of deployment on military children
  • Military children are faring at or above US average on academic engagement, peer relationships
  • Military children are functioning below average in areas of family relationships, anxiety and emotional difficulties.
  • Girls report more anxiety symptoms. Anxiety problems decrease among older children.
  • Re: effects of deployments…girls worry about next deployment, dealing w/parents’ mood swings & worry about how parents are getting along.
  • As months of deployment increase, so do the challenges. Total # months matter more than # of deployments
  • Re: children, deployments and resilience – mental health of non- deployed parent matters
• Information shared regarding reserve component perspectives and transition from weekend warriors to operational force and challenges associated with that
  • 1.1 million troops in reserve components. Average age is 38
  • 50% are married. Most live in communities far away from military installations.
  • Reserve component is juggling 2 careers…how do you meet the demands of 2 employers?
  • Employers are being stressed by deployments as well.
  • Instantaneous communication is a double edged sword when you’re out in the field worried about family at home.
  • Challenge – how do you provide effective services to a geographically dispersed force?
• Air Force pediatrician, Dr. (Maj) Flake spoke about recognizing and responding to child stress.
  • Deployments aren’t going away. How do we make them stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks?
  • 71% of AD servicemembers with children plan on staying in until retirement
  • Resource for teens – Military Youth Coping with Separation: When Family Members Deploy.

There is so much more to share, but perhaps this is a good place to stop.  We’ve been told that the presentations from the conference will be shared on the DCOE website, so keep checking back.  All in all, it was a day well spent learning more about all the initiatives going on out there to support military families.

The folks at Sesame Street are at it again.  The same folks who brought you the Talk, Listen, Connect initiative and last year’s When Parents are Deployed special with Cuba Gooding, Jr., have a new project on the horizon.  Entitled Coming Home: Military Families Cope with Change, this latest production takes on the issue of families welcoming home injured service members.

From the press release:

” Featuring Queen Latifah, John Mayer and Elmo, this half-hour HD program tells stories of service members who return home with injuries, visible and invisible, and explores the heroic struggles their families face in discovering a new way of finding a ‘new normal’.  The special, which premieres in conjunction with April as the Month of the Military Child, salutes the extraordinary courage and strength of these military families and offers the general public a powerful glimpse into what they often must endure.”

The special will premiere on PBS April 1st at 8pm ET/PT (check your local listings).