An ever-increasing number of studies show a correlation between the number of ACEs and devastating health and behavioral events later in life. To prevent these outcomes, we must prevent the occurrence of ACEs, which means directing prevention efforts at the parental level. An often-overlooked population is the military spouse community and the children of active-duty military members. With spouses who are often not co-located with their family and the transient life of forced moves every three-ish years, isolation and lack of community connectedness are prevalent in this population.
In 2019, 50% of United States military personnel are married, and approximately 39% have children (Committee, 2019).
The 2019 Blue Star Families survey found that 39% of active-duty military spouse respondents have no friends in their local community to talk with, and 35% have no one in their local community they know well enough to ask for a favor (BSF, 2020). This survey also discovered that 79% of active-duty military spouses do not believe civilians in their communities understand the sacrifices made by their families (BSF, 2020). Additionally, the 2019 Survey of Active-Duty Spouses found that 57% of military spouses rated the military community support for their family during the service member’s deployment as fair or poor; with only 19% rating it as excellent or very good (OPA, 2020).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists “community support and connected-ness” as a protective factor for child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, youth violence, and suicide (CDC, 2014), all of which are contributing factors to Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs). Therefore, when looking to prevent ACEs at the community level of the Social-Ecological Model (CDC, 2020), strengthening these factors within a population is integral.
The overarching goal of this project is to prevent ACEs for children of active-duty military personnel by creating community support aimed at spouses with deployed service members, creating opportunities for military spouses to build interpersonal relationships with other military spouses with whom they share similar interests, and providing a non-traditional form of clinical counseling services to ensure appropriate and confidential outlets are available for spouses with children and/or single-car families.
This project will address the prevention of ACEs in children of active-duty military personnel through community building amongst the spouses of active-duty military spouses. The project will utilize the CDC’s Social-Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention (CDC, 2020) and design prevention measures at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels. For the purposes of this project, the relationship level will be applied to military spouse friendships with other military spouses, the community level will be applied to on-base military housing communities, and the societal level will be applied to the military spouse community at large within the Department of Defense.
The activities of this project will seek inspiration from the protective factors identified in the CDC’s Connecting the Dots (CDC, 2014) with an emphasis on the categories of child maltreatment and intimate partner violence. Protective factors from other categories such as teen dating violence, youth violence, sexual violence, bullying, and suicide may be incorporated as experiences with these elements contribute to ACEs.
Efforts will target both primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention. Primary prevention will be in the form of preventing ACEs from occurring within the child population, secondary prevention in the form of providing services for children who have already been exposed to ACEs, and tertiary prevention in treating parents with a history of ACEs to prevent long term effects, which ties back to primary prevention for the children (postvention as prevention).
The primary level this project seeks to impact is the relationship level of the CDC’s Social-Ecological Model (SEM) (CDC, 2020), however, secondary impacts will be reflected at the community level as the improved relationships become pervasive throughout the community.
Targeting the relationship level of the SEM is directly reflective of the CDC’s Connecting the Dots (CDC, 2014) allocation of protective factors. The preponderance of protective factors for all types of violence prevention lay at the relationship level (CDC, 2014). The secondary effect of impacting the community level is also reflective of the community level holding the second greatest number of protective factors for violence.
As previously mentioned, for the purposes of this project, the relationship level is defined as the one-on-one relationships between military spouses. In short, this project seeks to grow friendships between individuals, thereby growing a relationship. The community level is defined as a specific military housing community. This community can be outside of a military installation, however, predominantly will be military housing communities considered ‘on-base’ housing. Within these housing areas, each home is occupied by an active-duty military member and their spouse.
The project activities will all center on building community support, creating interpersonal relationships, and encouraging connectedness for military spouses. To build the community, support the following activities will be implemented: Hiring skilled workers to undertake housing yard work and house cleaning services; employing a group of military children aged 12+ to provide dog walking services, and employing a group of military children aged 15+ to provide on-call babysitting services. These services will primarily target military spouses with deployed service members. These tasks can be difficult to accomplish while living as a ‘single parent’ and a helping hand can alleviate a small portion of the burden and foster feelings of community support.
The primary project activity will consist of creating opportunities for spouses in the community to come together, meet other spouses with similar interests, and form friendships. These meeting opportunities will include dog walking groups, painting classes led by professional instructors, walking/jogging/stroller jogging groups, cooking classes, and game nights. These activities will be supported by the babysitting services to enable spouses to gather and not worry about caring for their children.
A final offering will be a ‘traveling counseling service’. These licensed clinical providers will meet military spouses where they are and provide clinical counseling services on an as-needed basis. These providers will not fail to provide services due to a lack of childcare for military spouses with children and will not require counseling recipients to travel to an office. This will enable young military spouses with children and/or single-care families to receive services without constraint.
REFERENCES
Blue Star Families (BSF). (2020). 2019 Military Family Lifestyle Survey [Comprehensive Report]. https://bluestarfam.org/wp-con...igital-rev200305.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2014). Connecting the Dots: An Overview of the Links Among Multiple Forms of Violence [online]. https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr...cting_the_dots-a.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2020). The Social Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention [online]. https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr...ecologicalmodel.html
Committee on the Well-Being of Military Families. (2019). Strengthening the Military Family Readiness System for a Changing American Society. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b...kshelf_NBK547607.pdf
Office of People Analytics (OPA). (2020). 2019 Survey of Active Duty Spouses [Briefing]. https://download.militaryoneso...fing-508-Revised.pdf
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