A New Approach for Assessing the Needs of Service Members and Their Families

Abstract : Since the advent of the all-volunteer force in the 1970s, military family programs and quality-of-life initiatives for service members have grown and continue to grow. Despite widespread belief that these programs enhance military recruitment, retention, readiness and performance, scant evidence exists to demonstrate this link, or to determine what types of support have the greatest impact or return on investment. A 1988 Department of Defense Directive requires military family support programs to be responsive to the needs of service members and their families, yet most assessments place existing programs at the center of the inquiry, not the needs of personnel and their families. Assessments that do ask about needs typically fail to link them with program use or whether those programs helped to meet those needs. This monograph proposes a research framework and a survey that differs from existing survey efforts. The new approach allows us to link service members' and spouses' most pressing problems to their self-defined needs. Then, within that context, it links those needs to the military and nonmilitary services they used and did not use and their perceptions about those services, including whether they helped solve their problems. The monograph shows the process by which we developed and tested this framework and provides a sample survey instrument. We also discuss how this approach differs from other approaches, the challenges to implementing such a survey, and the value of the potential survey results to different types of military leaders and support service professionals.

[1]  Leora N. Rosen,et al.  The Military Family's Influence on Soldiers' Personal Morale: A Path Analytic Model , 1989 .

[2]  M. Coleman,et al.  Military Families Under Stress: Implications for Family Life Education† , 2003 .

[3]  L. T. Hoshmand,et al.  Support for military families and communities , 2007 .

[4]  James Hosek,et al.  Married to the Military: The Employment and Earnings of Military Wives Compared with Those of Civilian Wives , 2002 .

[5]  Margaret C. Harrell,et al.  Deployment Experiences of Guard and Reserve Families: Implications for Support and Retention , 2008 .

[6]  Richard T. Cooney.  Moving with the Military: Race, Class, and Gender Differences in the Employment Consequences of Tied Migration , 2003 .

[7]  Emily Martin,et al.  Be All That We Can Be: Lessons from the Military for Improving Our Nation's Child Care System. , 2000 .

[8]  Hyder Lakhani.  Reenlistment Intentions of Citizen Soldiers in the U.S. Army , 1995 .

[9]  Bradford Booth,et al.  National Leadership Summit on Military Families , 2009 .

[10]  Benjamin R. Karney,et al.  Families Under Stress: An Assessment of Data, Theory, and Research on Marriage and Divorce in the Military , 2007 .

[11]  Jennifer L. Kerpelman,et al.  Examining the Impact of Workplace Supports: Work-Family Fit and Satisfaction in the U.S. Military , 2005 .

[12]  Vincent H. Demma.  Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989 , 1989 .

[13]  Bernard D. Rostker,et al.  I Want You!: The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force , 2006 .

[14]  Rachel M. Burns,et al.  Understanding the Impact of Deployment on Children and Families , 2008 .

[15]  Margaret C. Harrell.  Army Officers' Spouses: Have the White Gloves Been Mothballed? , 2001 .

[16]  Lindsay Rock,et al.  Military child well-being in the face of multiple deployments , 2010 .

[17]  Colonel,et al.  Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel , 2007 .

[18]  Jennifer M. Kavanagh,et al.  How Deployments Affect Service Members , 2006 .

[19]  F. Medway,et al.  Adjustment and achievement associated with mobility in military families. , 1987 .

[20]  Thomas J. Cooke,et al.  Migration and Employment Among the Civilian Spouses of Military Personnel , 2005 .

[21]  Charles W Hoge,et al.  Prevalence of mental health problems, treatment need, and barriers to care among primary care-seeking spouses of military service members involved in Iraq and Afghanistan deployments. , 2008, Military medicine.

[22]  Rachel M. Burns,et al.  Children on the Homefront: The Experience of Children From Military Families , 2010, Pediatrics.

[23]  Hyder Lakhani,et al.  Reserve/Guard Retention: Moonlighting or Patriotism? , 1993 .

[24]  Sheila Nataraj Kirby,et al.  The Effect of Mobilization on Retention of Enlisted Reservists After Operation Desert Shield/Storm , 1998 .

[25]  Richard Buddin,et al.  Building a Personnel Support Agenda Goals, Analysis Framework, and Data Requirements , 1998 .

[26]  S. Cozza,et al.  Military Families and Children During Operation Iraqi Freedom , 2005, Psychiatric Quarterly.

[27]  T. Britt,et al.  Testing the stress-buffering effects of self engagement among soldiers on a military operation. , 2003, Journal of personality.

[28]  Walter R. Schumm,et al.  Keeping the Home Fires Burning: Family Support Issues , 1996 .

[29]  Kathleen M. Campbell,et al.  Greedy Media: Army Families, Embedded Reporting, and War in Iraq , 2007 .

[30]  E. Vernberg,et al.  Experiences with peers following relocation during early adolescence. , 1990, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[31]  Peter S. Jensen,et al.  The effects of war and parental deployment upon children and adolescents. , 1996 .

[32]  Shelley Perry,et al.  Evaluation of MWR Services and Family Programs: Results from the 1992 DoD Surveys of Officers and Enlisted Personnel and Military Spouses. , 1997 .

[33]  G Schofield,et al.  A retrospective study of marital discord in pilots: the USAFSAM experience. , 1990, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[34]  Mady Wechsler Segal,et al.  Grass Roots Family Action and Military Policy Responses , 1990 .

[35]  Martha Bragin,et al.  Bringing it all back home: social work and the challenge of returning veterans. , 2007, Health & social work.

[36]  Bradford Booth,et al.  Contextual Effects of Military Presence on Women's Earnings , 2003 .

[37]  Chris Bourg,et al.  The Impact of Family Supportive Policies and Practices on Organizational Commitment to the Army , 1999 .

[38]  Mady Wechsler Segal,et al.  What We Know About Army Families , 1993 .

[39]  D. B. Bell,et al.  Effects of a Military Overseas Peacekeeping Deployment on Marital Quality, Satisfaction, and Stability , 2000, Psychological reports.

[40]  G W Yeatman,et al.  Paternal separation and the military dependent child. , 1981, Military medicine.

[41]  Vernon A Barnes,et al.  Perceived stress, heart rate, and blood pressure among adolescents with family members deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. , 2007, Military medicine.

[42]  Stephen W Marshall,et al.  Effect of deployment on the occurrence of child maltreatment in military and nonmilitary families. , 2007, American journal of epidemiology.

[43]  Bruce R. Orvis,et al.  Validity and Usefulness of Enlistment Intention Information , 1992 .

[44]  C. Hoge,et al.  Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems and barriers to care. , 2004, U.S. Army Medical Department journal.

[45]  Bryan W. Hallmark,et al.  Effects of Soldiers' Deployment on Children's Academic Performance and Behavioral Health , 2011 .

[46]  Sondra Albano.  Barriers and Facilitators to Use of Air Force Family Support Centers (FSCs): Lessons for Civilian and Military Sectors. , 1997 .

[47]  Robert L. Holzbach,et al.  Surface Warfare Junior Officer Retention; Spouses' Influence on Career Decisions , 1981 .

[48]  Anita Chandra,et al.  The impact of parental deployment on child social and emotional functioning: perspectives of school staff. , 2010, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[49]  Peggy Anne Fisher McNulty.  Does deployment impact the health care use of military families stationed in Okinawa, Japan? , 2003, Military medicine.

[50]  Allison M J Reisbig,et al.  The impact of individual trauma symptoms of deployed soldiers on relationship satisfaction. , 2007, Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

[51]  Doris B. Durand,et al.  The Family Factor and Retention Among Married Soldiers Deployed in Operation Desert Storm , 1995 .

[52]  R. Emerson,et al.  Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes , 1995 .

[53]  Mady Wechsler Segal,et al.  The Military And the Family As Greedy Institutions , 1986 .

[54]  Lyn Carlsmith,et al.  Effect of Early Father Absence on Scholastic Aptitude , 1964 .

[55]  Jacquelyn Scarville,et al.  Waiting Wives: Separation and Reunion among Army Wives , 1995 .

[56]  Casey Wardynski,et al.  Financial Management Problems Among Enlisted Personnel , 1999 .

[57]  John R. Underhill,et al.  The Effect of Work/Family Conflict on Intention to Quit: The Mediating Roles of Job and Life Satisfaction , 2007 .

[58]  Elizabeth D. Hillenbrand.  Father absence in military families. , 1976 .

[59]  Margaret C. Harrell,et al.  Working Around the Military: Challenges to Military Spouse Employment and Education , 2004 .

[60]  P. Jensen,et al.  Prevalence of mental disorder in military children and adolescents: findings from a two-stage community survey. , 1995, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[61]  Mark C. Pisano.  Implications of Deployed and Nondeployed Fathers on Seventh Graders' California Achievement Test Scores during a Military Crisis. , 1996 .

[62]  Christopher Spera.  Spouses' Ability to Cope with Deployment and Adjust to Air Force Family Demands , 2009 .

[63]  Carol A Mutter,et al.  Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) , 2004 .

[64]  David S. Lyle,et al.  Military deployments and children's academic achievement: Evidence from Department of Defense Education Activity Schools , 2010 .

[65]  Sondra Albano,et al.  Military Recognition of Family Concerns: Revolutionary War To 1993 , 1994 .

[66]  Nelson Lim,et al.  Working Around the Military Revisited: Spouse Employment in the 2000 Census Data , 2007 .

[67]  Mady Wechsler Segal,et al.  Veterans, the Vietnam Era, and Marital Dissolution , 2009 .

[68]  Paul D. Bliese,et al.  Psychological Well-Being and Physical Health Symptoms of Soldiers Deployed for Operation Uphold Democracy. A Summary of Human Dimensions Research in Haiti. , 1995 .

[69]  Paul D Bliese,et al.  The impact of deployment length and experience on the well-being of male and female soldiers. , 2005, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[70]  Eric M. Flake,et al.  The Psychosocial Effects of Deployment on Military Children , 2009, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[71]  Gary L. Bowen,et al.  Family Adaptation of Single Parents in the United States Army: An Empirical Analysis of Work Stressors and Adaptive Resources. , 1993 .

[72]  Edward E. Jones.  The social psychology of military service. , 1977 .

[73]  T. Tanielian,et al.  Invisible Wounds of War Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery , 2022 .

[74]  C. Fullerton,et al.  Deployment and the probability of spousal aggression by U.S. Army soldiers. , 2010, Military medicine.

[75]  Joy S. Moini,et al.  Meeting Family and Military Needs through Military Child Care , 2009 .

[76]  Sven E. Wilson,et al.  Warfare and Welfare: Military Service, Combat, and Marital Dissolution , 2002 .

[77]  Leonard Wong,et al.  The Effects of Multiple Deployments on Army Adolescents , 2012 .

[78]  David D. Rabb,et al.  Counseling army reservists and their families during operation desert shield/storm , 2004, Community Mental Health Journal.

[79]  Joe F. Pittman,et al.  Internal and External Adaptation in Army Families: Lessons from Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. , 2004 .

[80]  Jay A. Mancini,et al.  Adjustments among Adolescents in Military Families When a Parent is Deployed , 2005 .

[81]  David S. Lyle.  Using Military Deployments and Job Assignments to Estimate the Effect of Parental Absences and Household Relocations on Children’s Academic Achievement , 2006, Journal of Labor Economics.

[82]  Lawrence M. Hanser,et al.  Year of the Air Force Family , 2011 .

[83]  Lolita Burrell,et al.  Military Community Integration and Its Effect on Well-Being and Retention , 2003 .

[84]  Regina L Burch,et al.  Officer Career Development: Modeling Married Aviator Retention , 1989 .

[85]  D Greaves,et al.  Family systems therapy after Operation Desert Storm with European-theater veterans. , 1998, Journal of marital and family therapy.

[86]  David R. Segal,et al.  Examining the importance of organizational supports on family adjustment to army life in a period of increasing separation , 1999 .