Since 2000, it has been my honor to lead the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University. This was an experience I never expected to have, but I have found it to be among the most meaningful and intellectually engaging of my career. Today, the institute is actually misnamed because we now carry out not just research but also outreach with and for military families, working closely with military and community organizations.

We often receive calls from colleagues who are eager to learn about working with the military, and so in this article I share some suggestions. Some of these were presented at a recent meeting of the Society for Social Work Research.

Go back to the books

There is a good chance that many of the research questions or intervention ideas you are thinking of have already been thought of by others. Because research about military families tends to wane between conflicts, the most recent research relevant to your question may have been published soon after the most recent large-scale conflict (the first Gulf War in the 1990s). Considerable research on military families is published in technical reports rather than peer-reviewed literature (because it is funded by military contracts), and thus you must search the "gray" literature as well as the traditional scientific literature (the Defense Technical Information Center is a very important source). Before you conclude that your idea really is new, make sure you scan the environment very carefully.

Remember the old adage that "Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread"

It can be easy to find flaws in prior research or intervention efforts. For example, many reports have recently criticized existing military programs for lacking sufficiently rigorous evaluation protocols. In at least some of these cases, there were good reasons that evaluation activities were limited, such as legal restrictions on appropriate use of funds. You should always assume that your predecessors were smart, thoughtful people who wanted to do a good job. If you can find out about the constraints they faced, you will have a much better chance of improving on their effort.

Never forget that it's not about you or your program

Military folks have an important mission to carry out for the country. They are completely funded by taxpayer dollars and they expect accountability. They work with academics to find better ways to fulfill their mission, not because they are trying to help us publish articles, conduct randomized trials of a new intervention, or train students. If they learn of a resource that they think will help them fulfill their mission better, cheaper, or faster, they need to pursue that option even if it means withdrawing support from existing projects.

Every day, military members are in harm's way around the world. Even in European cities on "regular" deployments, service members have been targets of lethal violence. Combat deployments are decreasing as troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan, but deployments for peacekeeping, natural disasters, training, and many other purposes continue. Thus, the children, partners, parents, and other people who love military members will continue to watch, wait, and worry. Over the past decade, we have added millions of men and women to the veteran population, and the costs of caring for the service-connected illnesses and injuries of these individuals will not peak for several decades. As educators, scholars, and practitioners, we are obligated to pay attention to this new demographic group. I am proud to be among many wonderful colleagues around the world who are doing this work and we at MFRI are eager to collaborate with students and faculty who share our interest in gathering and analyzing data, strengthening programs, and educating new colleagues.

This blog post appeared as the lead article in the Spring 2012 NCFR Report - Focus on Military Families

Professor Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth is Associate Dean, College of Health and Human Sciences and the Director, Center for Families and the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University