This Social Policy Report summarizes what is currently known about our nation’s military children and families and presents ideas and proposals pertinent to the formulation of new programs and the policies that would create and sustain these initiatives. We emphasize the need for future rigorous developmental research about military children and families that could more definitively inform future programs and policies. These policies and programs should build on the resilience of military children and families in order to best maintain and enhance their health and positive development. The…
Two commentaries from the report, Military and Veteran Families and Children: Policies and Programs for Health Maintenance and Positive Development, deepen the discussion about how best to support military and veteran children and families. In the second commentary, Rami Benbenishty and Ron Astor highlight the importance of considering the normative settings in which military children function (e.g., nonmilitary communities, schools) and building on those normative experiences to foster resiliency in military-connected children. They also urge researchers to include information about the…
Brief
Deployment and its possible consequences, including a service member's injury, psychological trauma, or death, put considerable strain on military children and families. Most of them are resilient in the face of this adversity. Still, the psychological distress they experience can reverberate through the family, impairing the healthy functioning of parents and children alike. As a nation, we owe these families a system of care that emphasizes not just treatment but also prevention, helping them draw on their own resources for resilience, as well as those of their communities. We propose a…
