More than two years after announcing its creation, the Pentagon is in the final stages of formally launching its new Military Spouse Transition Education Program, Military.com reported.
The DOD-wide MyStep program, now available in limited form through Military OneSource, will empower military spouses with key information to aid transition through military life, according to Eddy Mentzer, associate director for Children, Youth and Families in DOD’s Military, Community and Family Police office.
MySTEP will contain a series of short videos addressing three spouse life stages: new spouses, spouses whose service members are mid-career; and those preparing for service separation, according to the report.
The first installment of 21 available online videos focuses only on new spouses and addresses topics including good financial habits, available DOD spouse education resources, and how to locate child care.
The videos went live in a soft launch Aug. 1 and Mentzer said they will be publicized in early September.
MyStep will add about 180 videos next year which will mostly focus on spouses whose service members are preparing for civilian transition within a year, according to the report.
“There’s one given in military life, and that is that you will leave military life at some point,” Mentzer said. “I think that’s why this is so vital.”
Two years’ work went into developing offerings to get them right, according to Mentzer. The program team convened a panel of spouses representing many stages of military life in every branch, including National Guard and Reserve. The videos are based off that group’s input, Mentzer said.
“It’s easy to throw a couple of fact sheets and a few articles together,” he said. “We wanted to do something a little different, and that’s where we came up with the idea of video vignettes that we developed.”