Understanding and Supporting the Resilience of a New Generation of Combat-Exposed Military Families and Their Children
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Understanding and Supporting the Resilience of a New Generation of Combat-Exposed Military Families and Their Children Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth
Published online: 1 October 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Taking our nation to war has exposed a generation of military families and children to combat and its consequences. Every dollar spent on bullets, trucks, fuel, and food carried a future ‘tax’ in the form of consequences for psychological and physical health and family relationships. In this commentary, I focus on several themes that emerge from the special collection or articles. For example, I consider how best to define the ecological niche(s) occupied by military-connected children and families. Not surprisingly given significant gaps in our knowledge, evidence regarding the well-being of military-connected children is mixed. I also consider the multi-layered environments within which individuals and families function, recognizing both the challenges and opportunities they provide. The need to respond rapidly to the evolving needs of military families has highlighted the value of both prevention science and implementation science. Public health models emphasizing a full continuum of care that emphasizes not only treatment but also universal, selective, and indicated prevention also are appealing given the uneven density, uncertain locations, and unknown identities of military families in civilian communities (Beardslee 2013; Murphy and Fairbank 2013). Finally, it is important to recognize that we are at the beginning, not the end, of the post-war lifetimes for the new generation of veterans and their families. Keywords Military families Deployment Resilience Development Context
S. M. Wadsworth (&) Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Who are military-connected children and families? Are they beleaguered and depleted, made vulnerable by more than a decade of high operational tempo, repeated separations, exposure to trauma, and the injuries and deaths of loved ones and friends? Or are they resilient, committed, and energetic patriots who constantly innovate to proactively meet each new challenge and opportunity presented by their family’s military service? Of course they are all of these things, which is perhaps one of the most important things to remember about them. I am very pleased to see the publication of this special double issue collection of articles focusing on military-connected children and families, and commend the journal editors for devoting so much space to this important topic. There are many important insights into the collection that will inform the work of both researchers and practitioners. I focus my commentary on several themes that emerge from the collection with the goal of distilling key ‘take-away’ points.
How Best to Define the Ecological Niche(s) Occupied by Military-Connected Children and Families? The articles in this special collection identify a wide variety of possib
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