Serving Military Families ─ In the 21st Century

This text introduces readers to military families, their resilience, and the challenges of military life. Personal stories from active duty, National Guard, reservists, veterans, and their families, from all branches and ranks of the military, and those who work with military personnel, bring their experiences to life. A review of the latest research, theories, policies, and programs better prepares readers for working with military families. Objectives, key terms, tables, figures, summaries, and exercises, including web based exercises, serve as a chapter review. The book concludes with a glossary of key terms.

Engaging vignettes are featured throughout:

· Voices from the Frontline offer personal accounts of issues faced by actual program leaders, practitioners, researchers, policy makers, service members, and their families.

· Spotlight on Research highlights the latest studies on dealing with combat related issues.

· Best Practices review the optimal strategies used in the field.

· Tips from the Frontline offer suggestions from experienced personnel.

The book opens with an introduction to military culture and family life. Joining the military and why people do so are explored in chapter 2. Next, life in the military including relocation, employment, education, and deployment are examined. Daily lives of children in military families are explored in chapter 4. How stress and resilience theories are used in working with military families are then reviewed. Chapter 6 focuses on milestones experienced by service members and programs that support them through these transitions. Everyday issues caused by the trauma of war are reviewed in Chapters 7 and 8. Programs, policies, and organizations that serve military families in dealing with deployment, education, and health and child care are explored in chapters 9 and 10 followed by initiatives supporting reintegration and reunification issues. Next, how to work with families and those who have experienced traumatic events is considered. The book concludes with a review of career opportunities and stories from working professionals.

Intended as a text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on military families or as a supplement for courses on the family, marriage and family, stress and coping, or family systems taught in family studies, human development, clinical or counseling psychology, sociology, social work, and nursing, this book also appeals to helping professionals who work with military families.

Karen R. Blaisure, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified family life educator, is a professor of family studies in the department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Western Michigan University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Family and Child Development at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1992. Her research focuses on U.S. and international educational and policy initiatives for families experiencing separation and divorce. She teaches Family Life and the Military for students in the helping professions. From 1986 to 1989 she worked as a program specialist and an education services supervisor and in 1992 as a special project consultant at the Navy Family Services Center in Norfolk, Virginia. In these roles she facilitated programs on deployment, reunion, children, and parenting. She has presented on military families to many professional groups and has written about the Navy’s Return and Reunion program.

Tara Saathoff-Wells is a faculty member in the Department of Child, Family and Community Sciences at the University of Central Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Alabama in 2000. From 1989 through 1994, she worked in Kenya and Mozambique with both indigenous and U.S. expatriate populations. As a doctoral student, she completed an internship with the U.S. Department of State in the Family Liaison Office, the primary family and child resource and support office for U.S. diplomatic families. Dr. Saathoff-Wells is a former faculty member in Human Development and Family Studies at Central Michigan University where she taught a course on Military Family Life and served as Director of the Women’s Studies Program. In 2010 Dr. Blaisure and Dr. Saathoff-Wells team-taught their respective courses coordinating lectures, videos, guest speakers, class discussions and field trips. The classes were linked by compressed video interactive technology (CVIT).

Colonel Angela Pereira U.S. Army, Retired, is a consultant and educator on psychological health and military life issues, having completed a distinguished career in the military. She is a member of the External Advisory Council of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University. She previously served as the U.S. Army’s regional mental health consultant and director of the U.S. Army Europe Regional Medical Command’s Solider and Family Support Services in Heidelberg, Germany; as a member of the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health; as director of the Combat Stress Control/Mental Health Clinic at Abu Ghraib, Iraq; as director of education and training on health and wellness at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine; and as the division social worker for the Third Armored Division during Operations Desert Shield/Storm. Board-certified in clinical social work, she earned her Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of South Carolina. Pereira’s many honors include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal and the Order of Military Medical Merit.

Shelley M. MacDermid Wadsworth is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University, where she also directs the Military Family Research Institute and the Center for Families, and serves as Associate Dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University in 1990. Her research focuses on relationships between job conditions and family life, with special focus on military families and organizational policies, programs and practices. A fellow of the National Council on Family Relations and a recipient of the Work Life Legacy Award from the Families and Work Institute, Dr. MacDermid Wadsworth served as the civilian co-chair of the Department