Family Focus on Military Families

Spring 2012

These articles on military families were prepared for the "Family Focus" section of NCFR Report, the quarterly member magazine of the National Council on Family Relations. Because this topic is so important currenty, the editors made this series of articles open to the public.

Read more about NCFR Report. The Family Focus section appears in each issue and highlights a particular topic of interest to family researchers, educators, and practitioners.

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Working with the military

Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, one of NCFR's experts on military families, shares her wisdom on working with the military.

Buddy-to-Buddy: An innovative substitute for family support among at-risk, returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan

by Christopher Jarman, MSW, Adrian Blow, Ph.D., Michigan State University; Marcia Valenstein, M.D., M.S., The University of Michigan

For many returning veterans, peace eludes them. For members of the Army National Guard these experiences appear to occur at still higher rates and with greater severity than the rest of the military. In response to growing awareness of the struggles facing National Guard veterans, we developed what is known as Buddy-to-Buddy.

Advice to the therapists working with military families

by Angela J. Huebner, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Human Development, Virginia Tech

To date, about 1.8 million troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This translates into 2.7 million family members who have experienced separation for extended periods of time. Service members ranked deployment length and family separation among their top noncombat-related stressors.

Sally Koblinsky, Ph.D., and Zainab Okolo, M.A.

Military Families Internship: Strengthening families and communities

by Sally Koblinsky, Ph.D., professor, and Zainab Okolo, M.A., undergraduate coordinator, University of Maryland, College Park

When men and women serve our country, their families also serve. Among our current troops, 55% are married and more than 40% have children. The post-9/11 wars have been characterized by special challenges, including the increased number, length, and unpredictability of deployments.

World War II in people’s lives

by Ralph LaRossa, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Georgia State University

Today, approximately 1.5 million men and women are on active duty. But the breadth and depth of World War II put it in an entirely different realm. During World War II, more than 16 million were.

Military service and the life course: An assessment of what we know

by Jay Teachman, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Western Washington University

The military remains the single largest employer of young men in the United States. Given the continuing importance of military service in American life, it is important to understand its relationship to important components of the life course.

Military families: What we know and what we don’t know

by Sarah O. Meadows, Ph.D., RAND Corporation

Today’s soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and Coast Guard members have faced unprecedented stresses. Based on reinvigorated research into this unique population, this piece provides the reader with a taste of what we know, and what we don’t, about military families.

Ft Hood Soldier returns home, photo by Jonathan D. Blundell

Returning home: What we know about the reintegration of deployed service members into their families and communities

by Lydia I. Marek, Ph.D., LMFT, Family and Community Research Laboratory, Virginia Tech, W. Glenn Hollingsworth, M.A., Carissa D’Aniello, M.A., Kathleen O’Rourke, M.A., Donna-Jean P. Brock, M.A., Lyn Moore, M.A., John L. Butler VI, M.S., Jing Zhang, M.S., Bradford Wiles, M.A.

As nearly one half of all military personnel are parents, and almost two million children have a military parent. With the number of returning service members increasing, they and their families must now reassemble their lives after each member has experienced profound change.

Military Saves Fair stresses planning for the future, photo by USAG-Humphreys

Teaching about military families: Lessons from the field

by Tara Saathoff-Wells, Ph.D., CFLE; Amy Dombro, M.S.; Karen Blaisure, Ph.D., CFLE; Angela Pereira (Col., U.S. Army, Ret.), Ph.D., MSW; Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Ph.D., CFLE

This article focuses on college-level courses about military families. As a group, our goal is to work to ensure that the next generation of professionals from disciplines like family studies, counseling, social work, psychology, student affairs, and others are well-prepared to support military and veteran families as they enter, complete, leave, and deal with the aftermath of their military service.

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