Strengthening the Military Family Readiness System for a Changing American Society (2019) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Summary
Summary
Pages 1-16
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
Family members provide support to service members while they serve or when they have difficulties; family problems can interfere with the ability of service members to deploy or remain in theater; and family members are central influences on whether members continue to serve. Military families also raise a disproportionate number of future military service members, so the well-being of today's military family is important for future service members too.1 In addition, service members' psychological or physical difficulties can reverberate within families, potentially generating costs for DoD.
|
From page 2... ...
Its Family Readiness Policy was overhauled in 2012, and policy makers have made major revisions to the military retirement, compensation, and benefits system. Other significant reorganization efforts include a consolidation of social support services under the Defense Health System.
|
From page 3... ...
. SOURCE: Definitions of family readiness and family resilience adapted from Masten (2015, p.
|
From page 4... ...
The committee also developed recommendations for DoD regarding what is needed to strengthen the support system for military families. DoD asked the committee to focus on the active and reserve components in DoD, which includes the Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve; the Navy and Navy Reserve; the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve; and the Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve.3 The committee was asked to consider not only the well-being of single and married military personnel and their military dependents, but also the broad network of people who surround them.
|
From page 5... ...
Given the expansion of family diversity and changes in family stability and complexity over time, DoD's policies, programs, services, resources, and practices are more likely to be effective if they are attuned to different families' particular needs and characteristics. The committee thus concludes that due to the widespread changes in societal norms and family structures that have occurred in the United States, understanding and addressing military families' needs today requires greater attention to family diversity and stability.6 WHO ARE MILITARY SERVICE MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES?
|
From page 6... ...
DoD's most recent published demographics report from 2017 does not provide statistics for the number of registered same-sex marriages among military personnel, and other estimates were not readily available. The DoD's existing data on military families are insufficient for understanding the degree to which societal shifts in family structure are reflected in today's measurements of the military community population.
|
From page 7... ...
When these challenges exceed the capacity of individuals and families to manage them, they can undermine healthy processes that support family functioning, leading to cascading risk and reduction in well-being. The committee reviewed what is known about the effects on military families of duty-related illness, injury, and death.
|
From page 8... ...
Key correlates and predictors of childhood resilience include sensitive, responsive, loving, predictable, and protective parents and caregivers; self-regulation, or the ability to monitor and regulate one's behavior, attention, thoughts, and emotions; mastery-motivation skills, the adaptational system associated with the development of self-efficacy and motivating persistence; strong cognitive abilities; and hope, or a positive outlook, and meaning-making. Military families can be adversely affected by some aspects of military life, such as deployments, illnesses, and injuries, due to their undermining of healthy intrafamilial resilience processes that support family well-being and readiness.
|
From page 9... ...
The readiness and resilience of military families to thrive with the expected and unexpected challenges and opportunities of military life directly impacts the individual service members' readiness and attentiveness to the mission. DoD developed the MFRS to include a plethora of policies, programs, services, resources, and practices to support and promote family readiness and resilience.
|
From page 10... ...
3. evelop and share knowledge within and outside of the family, building D shared understanding about stressors, including service members' injury or illness, as well as modeling and teaching effective communication strategies.
|
From page 11... ...
The system lacks a comprehensive, coordinated framework to support individual and population well-being, resilience, and readiness among military families. Addressing this deficit could improve quality, encourage innovation, and support effective response capabilities.15 The current system lacks the processes and structures necessary to support ongoing population-level monitoring and mapping of family well- being, including a grounding in the continuum of promotion, prevention, treatment, and maintenance dimensions and integrated information infrastructures, accompanied by validated and appropriate assessments, necessary to support ongoing population-level monitoring and mapping of family well-being.
|
From page 12... ...
These challenges are amplified by the limitations of existing research on military child and family resilience and well-being, as well as by a complex and dynamic landscape of military contexts, services, and policies. The committee recommends that DoD should enable military family support providers, civilian or in uniform, who work for military systems, and consumers to access effective, evidence-based, and evidence-informed family strengthening programs, resources, and services.19 The committee also recommends that to support high-quality implementation, adaptation, and sustainability of policies, programs, practices, and services that are informed by a continuous quality improvement pro 17 Conclusion 7-3, Chapter 7.
|
From page 13... ...
Finally, to facilitate the consistency and continuation of its policies regarding military family readiness and well-being across political administrations and changes of senior military leadership, DoD should update and promulgate its existing instruction that operationalizes the importance of military family well-being by incorporating the conclusions and recommendations contained in this report.22 This directive would help withstand changes in political administrations and senior military leadership that could otherwise result in fluctuating support for military family readiness and well-being, especially when making tough budgetary decisions. Box S-3 provides a listing of the committee's recommendations, which have been excerpted for brevity.
|
From page 14... ...
RECOMMENDATION 4: The Department of Defense should review its cur rent policies, programs, services, resources, and practices for supporting m ilitary families -- as service members define families -- to ensure that they recognize the wide diversity of today's military families and address the special circumstances of military life, especially with regard to major tran sitions, such as entering military service, moving to new duty stations, deployng, shifting between active duty and reserve status, and transition i ing to veteran status. RECOMMENDATION 5: To help military leaders and nonmilitary service pro viders in civilian communities better understand and prioritize issues spe cific to their local communities, the Department of Defense should provide guidance for military leaders and service providers on how to readily and reliably access and utilize information about the surrounding communities in which their personnel are situated.
|
From page 15... ...
RECOMMENDATION 10: To enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Military Family Readiness System, the Department of Defense should in vestigate innovations in big data and predictive analytics to improve the accessibility, engagement, personalization, and effectiveness of policies, programs, practices, and services for military families. RECOMMENDATION 11: To facilitate the consistency and continuation of its policies regarding military family readiness and well-being across political administrations and changes of senior military leadership, the Department of Defense should update and promulgate its existing instruction that oper ationalizes the importance of military family well-being by incorporating the conclusions and recommendations contained in this report.
|
From page 16... ...
. Military families and combat readiness.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.