Featured this month at the NHMRC

Resources for working with military families

Now more than ever our military families need the support, encouragement and skills that come from marriage and relationship education opportunities. The following resources can help you understand the needs of military families and how to craft your services to meet those needs.

Reaching out to Military Couples
Transcript from a National Healthy Marriage Resource Center webinar that shares research findings on the effects of deployment and reintegration on military marriages and their families, the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) on military couples and their families, and how marriage education and marital counseling can help military families.

Relationship Challenges During Deployment
Deployments have not prevented military couples from experiencing happy, healthy, and successful marriages and relationships. Some couples feel that dealing with the challenges of deployment brought them closer together. However, even the strongest couples can have problems in their relationships when they live such large portions of their lives separately.

National Guard Toolkit
Created by practitioners who specialize in delivering family strengthening services to National Guard members and their families. This document is intended to assist practitioners who are working with military couples and/or their families.

More Resources
Nearly 50 resources available!

Check out the additional resources available from our friends at the Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) at Purdue University: www.mfri.purdue.edu.

What’s New in the Field

New Impact Report out from Healthy Relationships California

Strengthening Families Evidence Review New Administration for Children and Families website featuring a systematic review of research on programs serving low-income fathers or couples.

The Forever Initiative: A Feasible Public Policy Agenda to Help Couples Form and Sustain Healthy Marriages and Relationships – New resource by Alan J. Hawkins, professor of family life at Brigham Young University. In The Forever Initiative, Hawkins calls for more state-directed public support for a series of educational efforts to help individuals and couples form healthy relationships and enduring marriages. He outlines an integrated set of feasible and affordable educational initiatives across the early life course, beginning in youth, continuing in early adulthood, engagement, and through the early years of marriage. He reviews the early, encouraging evidence that these kinds of educational initiatives can help to strengthen relationships and increase family stability. While the causes of family instability are many and deep, Hawkins argues that this public policy agenda of educational initiatives can make more young people today better drivers of their romantic relationships, more competent at avoiding destructive detours, and more capable of achieving their marital aspirations and destinations.

Study Opportunities & Upcoming Conferences (provided as a public service)

The Relationships among Military Personnel (RAMP) project at the University of Colorado Denver is looking for participants for a study designed to learn more about relationship and psychological health among male Army Soldiers (including activated Army Reserve and National Guard) and their civilian wives or girlfriends after OEF deployment. www.rampproject.net

Marriage & Relationship Education Conference – Champions for Marriages, Families, Parents & Children. August 25-30, 2013 in Anaheim, CA. For more information and to register, visit: www.narmeconference.com