Military families with children who have special needs may be dealing with both the realities of a child’s disabilities and the demands of military life. The Family Support Network of North Carolina (FSNNC) offers a special affiliate program, which is called “Strengthening Military Families with Children Who Have Developmental Disabilities”. This project was developed with the aim to connect military families more directly to state and local resources, activities and services. It started in 2009 and is a five-year project. Through the Strengthening Military Families project, service agencies within the community and the military work together to give families one primary place to turn to when they need help. The project offers lots of different services:
- Information and referral are given to both civilian and military services and resources in the community.
- Parent-to-Parent Matching connects military families seeking support with trained military “Support Parents” who provide emotional help and practical information.
- Family Service Plans facilitated by the Family Support Coordinator are individualized plans that shall help the families to identify and achieve their goals.
- Workshops and Training are hold on topics such as educational advocacy, preparing for transitions, and finding resources.
- Support groups are provided for parents, caregivers, grandparents, and others.
- Sibling Workshops are offered for siblings of children who have special needs.
- Social Activities are arranged to connect families that have children with special needs.
All services are provided at no cost to families.
To be eligible to the program all families must be enrolled in the Exceptional Family Members Program (EFMP) of the military. The EFMP is a mandatory enrollment program that works with other military and civilian agencies to provide comprehensive and coordinated community support, housing, educational, medical, and personnel services to military families with special needs. Thus the EFMP program ensures every attempt is made to mesh military career and special needs whenever possible. You find more information about EFMP on http://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/r608_75.pdf
The Strengthening Military Families project is being piloted at Camp Lejeune and will target Marine Corps service members who live off base. These families need special support as they have to face the everyday challenge of navigating both the military and civilian systems.
We had the great opportunity to attend a meeting with the Program Coordinator and the Outreach and Family Support Coordinator.
We had the chance to attend the “State Collaborative Partnership Meeting” which was held at the UNC School of Social Work. Accomplishments of “Year One” and plans for “Year Two” were discussed and developed. One major focus in the early stage of the project is to fully establish the program and inform the families on its availability. The project expects to serve 60 families by the second year. One further aim is the establishment of peer support groups. Furthermore, we talked about evaluation instruments and first results.
We also got the great opportunity to attend a meeting with the Program Coordinator and the Outreach and Family Support Coordinator of the Strengthening Military Families project. This meeting was held at Camp Lejeune at Crystal Coast, Jacksonville, which is a several hours drive away from Chapel Hill. At this meeting, the Coordinators gave a detailed report on their work during the last year. We also talked about first senses of achievement, obstacles and concrete next steps that are to take in the course of the further development of the project. Is was highly interesting to get in contact with a military family mother, who attended the meeting with her children and openly talked about her own experiences and challenges, especially as the family had to move to a different base a few weeks later. She gave us an insight in both her daily pleasures and struggles, having to face an uncertain future. Her example illustrated impressively how much needed the project is. Furthermore, we profited a lot by talking to the Coordinators, who have lived at military bases for many years and therefore were able to talk about characteristics and challenges of family life in the military out of their own experience. As the meeting was held at the Camp, we even had the possibility to explore the military context as we got insight into the life next to a military base and also the related infrastructure.
As Camp Lejeune is located close to the East Coast, this trip offered us the nice chance to see a new aspect of North Carolina´s landscape: Topsail Island!
Topsail Island is a 26-mile long barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, just south of Camp Lejeune and contains the communities of North Topsail Beach, Surf City and Topsail Beach. Together with our instructor and her lovely colleague we enjoyed a wonderful walk along the quiet beach and a delicious dinner at a local fish restaurant.
All in all, our trip was a very enriching experience for us that will stay in our mind.
