Military Families Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This book examines the politics of military families in relation to the tensions between the state, military organization, and private life.
It elaborates on the tensions between the advent of challenging worldwide deployment for the military and the prominence of the home front. The volume aims to understand the dynamics of conflict and change within triad figurations at the macro (society), meso (organizational), and micro (family) level and is guided by the following overarching research questions:
••What are the key issues in the three-party dynamics?
••What tensions exist in these dynamics?
••How do actors seek to arrive at a balance? What initiatives for change aremade?
With contributions from international scholars, who examine the workings of politics in military families at all three levels, the book argues that members within military families deal with shifting power balances and these are impacted by demands from organizations and the state.
This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, organizational studies and politics.

- by
- •
- Military Families, Military Sociology, Norbert Elias

This research-based storybook for young children, contains research information in the back for parents, educators and family workers. The narrative follows the experiences of five-year-old Anthony who describes his struggles with waiting for his parent to come home from military deployment, his anger at his parent for being away for so long and the ways he stays in contact, despite the distance. The book was produced from research data and findings as part of a PhD study entitled 'Young children's experiences and understandings of parental deployment within an Australian Defence Force family' using the Mosaic approach and Narrative research methods. The research themes explored in the book include Emotional responses to deployment and post-deployment, tools and stories that assist children to understand the concepts of deployment and family communication. The eBook is an example of the way research data and findings can be made accessible to the general public to create impact. In this instance, the book is made available free of charge to parents, children, educators and family workers through a partnership with the Defence Community Organisation and the Department of Defence.

Grounded in multiple ways of thinking about families, we propose a beginning framework for developing and implementing military family life education. We first situate this work within the context of established family life education frameworks. Then, we discuss features of military culture, including its contexts and demands on families, to highlight the realities of life as a military family and underscore available strengths that family life educators may build upon. This is followed by a discussion of family science theories emphasizing components that can inform and ground military family life education. Next, we draw on lessons from recent comprehensive reviews of programs, including their merits and demerits. Finally, we cite example programs, including those embedded in military family support systems themselves, and resources that are available to family life educators. Ultimately, we propose a set of ideas that inform a framework for developing and implementing military family life education aligned with the realities of family life as well as the vulnerabilities and the resilience of military families. Military members and their families comprise one of the largest workforces in the United States, with approximately 1.3 million

- by Jay Mancini
- •
- Military Families, Conceptual Framework, Family Life Education

Opposition to the Iraq War is thought to have contributed to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The present study shows that controlling for other factors, including the percentage of the vote going to the prewar Democratic presidential candidate, states with relatively high levels of Iraq War military fatalities had a higher percentage vote for Obama. This result is consistent with a prediction derived from rational political theory and the results of several studies examining the impacts of war fatality rates in other military conflicts in previous elections. However, in the current study, we find that the effect of Iraq War fatalities on the percentage vote for Obama is conditioned by state military enlistment rates. Military fatalities have a strong effect in states with historically low military enlistment rates. But the effect disappears in states with very high levels of military enlistment.

- by Jungyun Gill
- •
- Sociology, Sociology of the Military, Military Families, Political Science

This book examines the politics of military families in relation to the tensions between the state, military organization, and private life.
It elaborates on the tensions between the advent of challenging worldwide deployment for the military and the prominence of the home front. The volume aims to understand the dynamics of conflict and change within triad figurations at the macro (society), meso (organizational), and micro (family) level and is guided by the following overarching research questions.:
• What are the key issues in the three-party dynamics?
• What tensions exist in these dynamics?
• How do actors seek to arrive at a balance? What initiatives for change are made?
With contributions from international scholars, who examine the workings of politics in military families at all three levels, the book argues that members within military families deal with shifting power balances and these are impacted by demands from organizations and the state.
This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, organizsational studies and politics.

- by Nina Rones
- •
- Military Families, Norbert Elias

« Il y a toujours plus inconnu que le soldat inconnu : sa femme ». Ce slogan a été inventé par les militantes du « Mouvement de libération des femmes françaises » au cours de la manifestation du 26 août 1970 à Paris. Elles ont été aussitôt arrêtées par la police, mais cette action constitue pourtant une preuve de la reconnaissance publique du rôle des épouses de militaires.
Le cas des épouses de militaires, en France, offre un cas particulier de réflexion sur l’imbrication entre travail et famille. De nos jours, bien que le rôle des épouses soit caché dans la sphère privée, il est reconnu comme indispensable pour le fonctionnement de l’armée, qui déplace cette activité de la sphère privée au domaine professionnel. C’est ainsi que les conjointes de militaires apportent par extension un service gratuit , favorisé par les dirigeants de l’armée et expliqué par la nature féminine de ces tâches.
L’objectif de cette enquête est d’interroger les constructions identitaires des épouses de militaires, afin de comprendre dans quelle mesure la vie en couples militaires, affecte-t-elle leur accès au travail.

- by Elena Lysak
- •
- Sociology, Gender Studies, Military Families, Gender division of labour

У статті висвітлено аналіз окремих напрацювань, що можуть слугувати базою для подальшого формування системи психосоціальної підтримки членів сімей військовослужбовців. У матеріалі описано результати апробації групових способів надання психологічної допомоги дружинам військовослужбовців, які проводилися на базі військових частин Національної гвардії України. За результатами аналізу 13 зустрічей визначено, що проведення зустрічей з дружинами військовослужбовців у послідовності: 1) опрацювання наявних соціальних запитів; 2) проведення психоемоційного розвантаження у груповій формі з використанням технік тілесно-орієнтованої терапії сприяє прояву індивідуальних психологічних запитів у близько 50% учасниць, що є основним показником ефективності. Також така організаційна форма роботи допомагає подолати бар'єри та налагодити канали комунікації між членами сім'ї та військовою частиною.

- by Nataliya Umerenkova (Didyk)
- •
- Military Families, Combat Veterans, Combat PTSD, Military Deployment

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html.

- by Natalie D Hengstebeck and +1
- •
- Military Families, Military Children and Families

За результатами інтерв’ювання військових психологів, учасників АТО та капеланів (13 осіб) на тему сімейних проблем у родинах військовослужбовців учасників АТО та шляхів їх вирішення, окреслено найбільш поширені проблеми в родинних стосунках на різних етапах виконання службово-бойового завдання в зоні АТО (підготовка до відправлення, власне перебування в АТО та після повернення додому), запропоновано можливі мінімальні заходи для їх вирішення і запобігання.

This paper explores some of the bio-psycho-social-spiritual effects of sexual assault on male survivors of Military Sexual Trauma (MST). Although the percentage of female survivors of MST is greater than the percentage of male survivors, the number of men who have sustained this trauma far exceeds the number of female survivors, since the veteran population remains overwhelmingly male. Men who have been sexually assaulted are as likely if not more likely to develop post-traumatic stress syndrome as veterans who have experienced combat-related trauma. There is virtually no research on male survivors, who face some different problems than female survivors of MST and who generally have greater difficulty discussing or seeking treatment for their trauma. It is vital for social workers to educate themselves about men’s issues with MST and to develop novel ways to make it easier for male survivors to discuss their experiences.

- by Kimberly Latta
- •
- Military History, Psychology, Mental Health, Military Families

Many Australian families experience a parent working away from home on a frequent or prolonged basis in the primary industries, transport or sales sectors or through deployment within the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Researching how these families are affected, and how they cope, survive, and sometimes thrive, during these challenging times offers insights into the ways early childhood educators can promote family resilience. By following these eight steps, educators can partner effectively with these families to ensure they are emotionally and physically supported.

- by Marg Rogers
- •
- Sociology, Children and Families, Military Families, Military Children and Families

Over the past four decades, Western militaries have increasingly relied on female soldiers . More recently, women's exclusion from combat is being lifted in a growing number of countries. Through our previous and ongoing research on female soldiers, we have, however, come to the realization that we cannot fully assess women's deepening military integration and their experiences of deployment without exploring their family and marriage dynamics. This paper begins to develop a comparison of military personnel and family policies in Canada and the US. Canada and the US present an excellent comparative case study. In Canada and the US, approximately 14 percent of service members are female. Canada opened all military roles to women 25 years ago and has allowed gays and lesbians to openly serve since the early 1990s. The US only recently officially lifted the combat exclusion and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and women will be permitted to enter combat roles for the first time in U.S. military history in 2016.

- by Marissa Greene
- •
- Military Families
- by Walter Forrest
- •
- Military Families, Military Veterans, Military Children and Families, Vietnam War

Book Chapter: Many sectors are investing resources into more preventative approaches to wellness. Population health institutes, the health care sector, psychologists, educators, and a growing sector of the military seek ways to keep individuals not only physically well, but emotionally and psychologically well. The research shows that maintaining positive states of well-being prevents future dis-ease. There are many approaches to achieving well-being. This chapter explores the subjective well-being construct, or happiness, how to increase well-being, and well-being among military-connected families. The author proposes a simple approach within the contemplative sciences paradigm that can be applied along the life continuum--from adolescence to adulthood.

America’s involvement in an increasingly globalized world demands constant military mobilization, for both the service member and her/his family. These displacements bring about different conceptualizations of home and belonging during pivotal stages of identity formation in military brats. For those that were constantly on the move during childhood, a sense of belonging and home prove more elusive. Severing ties one adds another variable when trying to define the self, since defining self is always in relation to others. Where do we brats call home? Does a military brat struggle with belonging? Do military brats identify with the concept of home as a traditional geographically rooted civilian? My goal is not to provide answers, rather to evoke feelings that have often been silenced and call attention to our social experience and complicated identity. This is an autoethnographic representation of the military brats who were identified through self-declaration, surveys, interviews, and observations of web group forums. Based on the questions posed to military brats by civilians upon their arrival in a new setting, it is well understood that civilians view home differently. Findings suggest that military brats conceptualize home not as a rooted and established geographical position. Home and belonging are bounded to relationships. This hybrid text of creative nonfiction, poetry, vignettes and statistical data as a mirror for understanding the military brats’ social position as a group with particular kinds of experiences.

- by R. Jamaal Downey
- •
- Cultural Studies, Mobility/Mobilities, Space and Place, Military Families

Studying military families in Argentina raises important questions due to their involvement in the crimes of the last dictatorship (1976–1983). The objective of the study realized in Buenos Aires in 2015 and 2016 was to explore the families’ narratives of both the years of political violence and the current democratic times, and to understand what it meant to be an officer or a military wife during the last dictatorship, and what it means to be a member of a military family of that age in contemporary democratic Argentina. Described are the strategies implemented within the military world that were applied after the trials that impacted the system of reciprocal expectations between the institution and the families. We discuss how kinship contributes to embed military power in Argentine society.

Military deployment is considered a stressful period for families (Palmer, 2008), typically lasting three to nine months for Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel. To date, insufficient research has been conducted concerning children who experience deployment (Siebler, 2015). This study seeks to provide valuable insights into young children's understandings and experiences of their parents' military deployment in an Australian context. An adapted research framework, based on the policies from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 2015) and Clark and Moss (2011), has been created to listen to and privilege the often marginalised child's voice. Employing a qualitative research approach known as Mosaic research, multiple methods of data collection are combined to gather various insights into children's experiences. Embracing an interpretivist epistemology, the researcher aims to create shared knowledges of children's understandings and experiences, progressively building insights into the child's experience and inviting discussions to take place about their experiences. The study found that young children's experiences of parental deployment included stressors, responses, adaptations and protective factors. Another major finding was that children's understandings of parental deployment were often underestimated by parents. Children's understandings were strongly influenced by time, place, acculturation, narrative, digital technology, cognitive development, adult reinforcement and the use of age and culturally appropriate resources. The central goal of Mosaic research 'is not to make children's knowledge unquestionable, but to raise it to such a level that children's knowledge about their lives is central to adult discussions' (Clark & Moss, 2011, p. 65). Such knowledge about children's understandings and experiences of deployment can inform effective support strategies for parents, educators and professionals who work with these children in the ADF and wider community. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Some say that doing a PhD is like eating an elephant. Others say it is a test of character, rather than intelligence. And still others say it is the worst thing you ever do because it's a long, lonely road and many things will start to unravel in your life during the journey. In my experience, these sayings are true. What I didn't realise, however, was the depth of people's goodwill and kindness to help you through these challenges.

- by Marg Rogers
- •
- Sociology, Narrative, Children and Families, Military Families
- by Walter Forrest
- •
- Military Families, Military Veterans, Military Children and Families, Vietnam War

Over the past 20 to 30 years, resilience has become increasing prominent as a theoretical framework for research and practice. Resilience gives attention to the ways in which systems recover in the wake of stress. Originally a concept in engineering, resilience has become widely used in the social sciences as a way of making sense of the responses of individuals, families and communities to adversity and disaster. Resilience thinking typically starts with the observation that while some people succumb to a stressor, others who are exposed to that same stressor recover and ‘bounce back’, i.e. they are resilient. The resilience question is, ‘What is it about that second group that enables them to respond in resilient ways?’ This paper proposes that resilience provides a theoretical framework that has potential to facilitate the development of indigenous social work responses to local challenges, and in so doing could be a meaningful component of a developmental approach to social welfare and social work. A brief, but critical overview of resilience will be provided, followed by detailed attention to some of the main contributions resilience can make to the indigenisation of social work, including: serious listening to people’s experience of adversity and their long term hopes for a better future; identification of culturally-appropriate or indigenous responses to adversity, in global context; championing of personal and communal agency in the face of adversity; and the development of shared, forward-looking approaches to foster community resilience.

*UPDATE: The enactment of Section 3031 of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) now requires the Secretary of Defense to "provide for the installation and maintenance of an appropriate number of carbon monoxide detectors in each unit of military family housing under the jurisdiction of the Secretary" (see 10 U.S.C. §2821).
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that can cause sudden illness or death if a person is exposed to certain quantities. Often referred to as the "silent killer," CO poisoning kills over 430 people annually in the United States (U.S.), and approximately 50,000 people seek emergency medical treatment. Most states have enacted statutes or adopted regulations that require CO detectors or alarms in private dwellings. In these states, owners are required to install at least one battery-operated or hard wired CO detector or alarm in a housing unit. Likewise, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Military Services have taken CO risk reduction measures for housing they own and operate. However, DOD estimates about 63% of military families live off-post in private sector housing, or otherwise not on a military installation in DOD-maintained property. This military population is subject to the CO safety measures enacted by state or local jurisdictions, which vary from robust to nonexistent. In addition, another 24% of military families live in military privatized housing (i.e., housing built, maintained, and operated by private developers, though leased from DOD through a ground lease). Military privatized housing can be off-post or on a military installation, but in either case, CO detector or alarm requirements are generally determined by state and local laws, not DOD, unless explicitly written into privatized housing lease agreements.

- by G. James Herrera
- •
- Government, Military Families, Housing Policy, Carbon Monoxide

(abstract): We draw upon family resilience and narrative theory to describe an evidence-based method for intervening with military families who are impacted by multiple wartime deployments and psychological, stress-related, or physical parental injuries. Conceptual models of familial resilience provide a guide for understanding the mechanics of how families respond and recover from exposure to extreme events, and underscore the role of specific family processes and interaction patterns in promoting resilient capabilities. Leading family theorists propose that the family’s ability to make meaning of stressful and traumatic events and nurture protective beliefs are critical aspects of resilient adaptation. We first review general theoretical and empirical research contributions to understanding family resilience, giving special attention to the circumstances, challenges, needs, and strengths of American military families. Therapeutic narrative studies illustrate the processes through which family members acquire meaning-making capacities, and point to the essential role of parents’ in facilitating discussions of stressful experiences and co-constructing coherent and meaningful narratives. This helps children to make sense of these experiences and develop capacities for emotion regulation and coping. Family-based narrative approaches provide a structured opportunity to elicit parents’ and children’s individual narratives, assemble divergent storylines into a shared family narrative, and thereby enhance members’ capacity to make meaning of stressful experiences and adopt beliefs that support adaptation and growth. We discuss how family narratives can help to bridge intra-familial estrangements and re-engage communication and support processes that have been undermined by stress, trauma, or loss. We conclude by describing a family-based narrative intervention currently in use with thousands of military children and families across the USA.

Introduction: Th is article reviews representative programs for families and children from each NATO and Partnership for Peace (PfP) country with a representative participating in the NATO HFM RTG-258 task group on the impact of military life on children in military families. Methods: Each participating country was invited to submit up to three programs targeted at military-connected children and families. Results: 26 programs from nine countries were reviewed and categorized into 13 typologies. Discussion: Th e number of services off ered in each country appeared to be infl uenced by size of the military, the degree to which military life is separate or immersed in civilian life, and the access to universal and preventive health care. Program descriptions for representative programs are included, as well as recommendations for program development, evaluation, and implementation.

- by Maj Hedegaard Heiselberg
- •
- Military Families, NATO, Political Science, Families

This study has set out to examine how communication can fulfill the various social and emotional needs of reservists and their loved ones during deployment. This paper is based on twenty-six interviews conducted with Canadian Forces reservists and military family members. It explores what communication looks like during deployment, if some communication methods are preferred to others, what the purposes of deployment communication are, and what communication means to soldiers and their loved ones. Interview data created a picture of the methods and characteristics of communication, and the meanings of communication as related to the themes of Care and Support, Home and Connection, and Mood. The findings contribute to the literature on communication during military deployment by extending the analysis to family members other than spouses. Results also indicate some new findings not reported in previous research, including ways that communication helps maintain a sense of normalcy for the reservist and their loved ones during deployment, the feeling that communication from the military is also communication from home, new ideas about why communication can create stress, the ways family members use or avoid communication for protection, and the situations that can cause military members to feel forgotten or unappreciated while deployed.

- by Tanya Hathaway
- •
- Sociology, Narrative, Children and Families, Military Families

One parent shared with me that she was told ‘You’re just on your own until they go to school. There’s nothing out there’. She was part of my research project to find out what 2-5-year old children understand and experience when their parent worked away due to military deployment and training. During the project many other parents and early childhood educators repeated this problem, telling me about the lack of resources. They told me they wanted storybooks and apps for children from Australian Defence Force (ADF) families to help them understand and build resilience to deal with the stresses they face. These stresses include: long parental deployments, frequent parental training, frequent relocations and a parent who may get injured or suffer mental health conditions when they return. Children can react to parental deployment in many ways, including emotionally, socially, physically and in their learning and development (cognitively).

Children negotiate their lives through the narratives to which they are exposed in digital, print and oral form. Th e Rose's Story app project drew on a philosophy that positions children as social agents. We used the social and contextual elements underlying children's experiences with technology to develop a digital app for young children from the Australian military community by leveraging family narratives to portray children's agency. Data to develop the app was taken from a 2017 study involving 2-to 5-year-old children from 11 Australian Defence Force families. Findings from the Rose's Story app project can be applied practically to impact the well-being of children from military families, their parents, educators, and the broader community by increasing understanding and empathy. This article outlines eff ective ways to utilize a productive medium for children's voices to be heard, as well as identifies potential barriers.

- by Jo Bird
- •
- Educational Technology, Narrative, Children and Families, Military Families

- by Marg Rogers
- •
- Narrative, Children and Families, Military Families, Military Children and Families

Since the start of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 2 million children in the United States have been directly affected by the deployment of a parent. There are few recent empirical investigations that examine interventions designed to help children within military-connected (MC) schools. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of relevant studies, review some interventions, and call for more research studies to help MC schools develop effective practices and programs to address the unique needs of MC students.

- by Carlos Guzman
- •
- Developmental Psychology, Military Families

Recent studies have confirmed that repeated wartime deployment of a parent exacts a toll on military children and families and that the quality and functionality of familial relations is linked to force preservation and readiness. As a result, family-centered care has increasingly become a priority across the military health system. The FOCUS Project, a family-centered, resilience-enhancing program funded by the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, is a primary initiative in this movement. Since 2008, thousands of Navy, Marine, Navy Special Warfare, Army, and Air Force families have received FOCUS services at eighteen installations worldwide. This article describes the theoretical and empirical foundation and rationale for FOCUS, which is rooted in a broad conception of family resilience. We review the literature on family resilience, noting that an important next step in building a clinically useful theory of family resilience is to move beyond developing broad “shopping lists” of risk indicators by proposing specific mechanisms of risk and resilience. Based on the literature, we propose five primary risk mechanisms for military families and common “negative chain reaction” pathways through which they undermine the resilience of families contending with wartime deployments and parental injury. In addition, we propose specific mechanisms that mobilize and enhance resilience in military families and that comprise central features of the FOCUS Program. We describe these resilience-enhancing mechanisms in detail, followed by a discussion of the ways in which evaluation data from the program’s first two years of operation supports the proposed model and the specified mechanisms of action.

- by Christopher M. Layne
- •
- Resilience, Resilience, Military Families, Family Strengths and Resilience

Young children are able to express their experiences, understandings and thoughts by communicating through the use of the creative arts media with which they are comfortable and confident. My PhD study employed a qualitative Mosaic approach, so I was able to witness the way creative arts empowered children to make their often marginalised voices heard by: parents, educators, other researchers and policy makers. The study involved children aged two to five years within a long daycare service who were research participants and who became researchers themselves. A range of creative arts responses provided ways for children to: explore their experiences at home, express feelings about these events, share their desires for different experiences and create solutions for better outcomes. Children were also able to discuss each other's art responses and some were able to validate research themes. As researchers, using disposable cameras, the children were able to record happenings in their lives that were important as well as personal and cultural artifacts that had special meaning within the research themes. Parents were able to photograph the children guided by the children's instructions, so in effect, they directed data collection. The study presented ethical moments that required researcher reflexivity, including: ownership of data, educator involvement, management of activities and data collection. The study promoted an increase in the abilities of the children to verbally express emotional issues that were affecting them.

- by Marg Rogers
- •
- Children and Families, Military Families, Early Childhood Education, Arts Education

Partners of serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) members use social media platforms for
sharing information and building communities. As privileged insiders, the interactions of
partners on Facebook create unique security concerns. This paper examines partner attitudes
towards social media security. This paper demonstrates that partners consider themselves
security conscious, taking their role in protecting the member and the mission seriously. In the
absence of direct advice from the ADF, partners receive information about social media security
from peers and civilian sources. This paper offers suggestions which will increase the
effectiveness of social media security education for partners.

- by Amy Johnson
- •
- Military Families, Social Media, Cyber Security, Australian Defence Force

Враховуючи військові події на Сході України та необхідність участі в них військових підрозділів Збройних сил України та Національної гвардії України важливим фактором для виконання службово-бойових завдань є психологічний стан військовослужбовця. На думку дослідників одним із основних факторів, що впливають на психологічний стан військовослужбовців є стосунки в родині.
У матеріалі висвітлені уявлення військовослужбовців, особливо керівної ланки, про те, наскільки родина впливає на психологічний стан військовослужбовців. Учасники дослідження – 30 осіб, чоловіки, офіцери (включно з молодшим офіцерським складом).

Abstract: The mostly quantitative studies to date on the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on family functioning have involved comparing veterans suffering from PTSD with other categories of veterans, by examining psychiatric records, administering self-report instruments, and/or conducting structured interviews. This paper augments these findings with a thematic analysis of inten- sive semi-structured interviews that were carried out in 2009/10 with adolescent children of members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). These adolescents attended the high school in “Armyville,” a community that experienced several deployments to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2012. As part of a large, mixed- methods study, we focused on eight of the 17 (out of a total of 61) interview participants who indicated that their fathers or stepfathers had been afflicted with PTSD, in order to explore and discuss the key themes that emerged from their interviews: parental emotional unavailability, parentification, isolation, and school-based extrafamilial support. As illustrated by our interview participants, parentification, being a young carer, and acting out comprise three responses to the destabilizing of family dynamics that often accompanies parental PTSD. We conclude with suggestions for further research and for enhanced school support for adolescents affected by parental PTSD.

Post-deployment family reintegration and relationship breakdown among combat veterans has received considerable attention from the Department of Defense and the media. Social interventions have been developed as a family strengthening strategy. In this paper, we present a university-Wounded Warrior partnership where a relationship enhancement program was delivered in a weekend retreat format. The program was provided by a faculty member and an MSW-Alumnus who was an employee of the Wounded Warrior program. Doctoral and MSW students who were research assistants, interns, and volunteers were involved in (1) program management, including recruitment and registration of participants, (2) co-facilitation of intervention activities, and (3) evaluation research, specifically interviewing participants and transcription of interviews.