Checking in with Military Families

October 7, 2024

On Base wanted to know what is on the minds of military families these days, so we checked in with National Military Family Association CEO Besa Pinchotti. Pinchotti will speak at ADC’s Installation Innovation Forum, taking place Oct. 28-30 in San Antonio.

ADC: What are the most pressing issues facing military families right now?

Pinchotti: Military families come to us every day for our help identifying and solving the unique challenges of military life, but none are more pressing than their well-being and financial security.

At NMFA, we hear that directly from families: A quarter of military families experience food insecurity, and across our programs, families tell us how hard it is to make ends meet. Military spouses applying for our Joanne Holbrook Patton Military Spouse Scholarship program tell us about how hard it is to reinvent themselves with every PCS — and how unemployment weighs on them. Military teens report lower mental well-being than their civilian peers year after year in our annual Military Teen Experience Survey, and at one of our Operation Purple Camp locations this summer, a 13-year-old told us that the best part of Operation Purple was that “it gave me a chance at going to camp without putting a financial strain on my parents and family.”

This camper needed a week to disconnect from the demands of military life and just be a kid — an experience they knew was otherwise unaffordable.

Financial stress adds up. The National Institute of Health correlates financial stress with psychological stress. It’s hard to feel good when you’re worried about feeding your family, and military life adds additional stressors on top of that. We’re actively advocating to reduce those challenges with long-term policy solutions that promote financial security and strengthen military family well-being. Our families’ readiness depends on it.

ADC: What can communities do to better engage with military children and teens?

Pinchotti: Military kids need you to know they’re there. No matter where you live — on a big, active installation or tucked into a small corner of America — military families are there, too, and the experiences of military children and teens require special support. We actually asked this very question of the leaders in our signature teen program, Bloom, and they answered with A Field Guide to the Military Teen.

It’s written by military teens for communities with military teens, and it will remind every community that military kids serve, too. While they don’t wear the uniform, they still move every few years with the military, attending as many as six to nine schools on average by the time they graduate high school. They’re navigating all the regular work of childhood and adolescence while building new support systems, making new friends, finding their way around new towns and dealing with trainings and deployments that can take one parent out of the picture for extended periods of time.

In our 2023 Military Teen Experience Survey, we found that 37% of military-connected teens experienced low mental well-being. Teens who report low mental well-being generally experience difficulty thinking clearly and making up their minds. They also rarely feel optimistic, they do not feel relaxed, and they feel disconnected from others. Only 9% of our respondents reported high mental well-being.

And that’s where communities can help. Some suggestions from our teens include:

  • “Listen to us. Having a person outside our home who knows our situation gives us a safe place to talk about the deployment. Many times we won’t share information with the parent who is still at home for fear of ‘rocking the boat.’ Our parents get stressed out during deployments, too. You can send care packages from your group to the deployed parent.”
  • “Schools: Establish a policy that accommodates families dealing with separation good-byes and reunions as well as Rest and Recuperation (R&R) leave. Be sure the school counselor knows if our parent is deployed.”
  • “Let us be kids for a while. We still have a child inside of us who just wants to have fun, even if we’re faced with adult challenges. Give us a safe place where we can unwind.”

ADC: ADC’s Military Spouse Leadership Initiative is bringing more spouses to the table. Why are their voices so important in policy and other discussions?

Pinchotti: NMFA began in 1969 when five military spouses gathered around a table in Washington at the height of the Vietnam War, determined to do better by their widowed friends. They went door to door in Congress, and three years later, the Survivor Benefit Plan was born.

Our founders raised their voices, shared their experiences, and called for the changes they knew our community needed, and 55 years later, we’re still benefiting from their work. ADC’s Military Spouse Leadership Initiative is an opportunity for a new generation of military spouses to confidently share their first-hand experience and inform the policies, programs and solutions meant to support them in military life.

At NMFA, it’s our mission to identify and solve the complex problems of military life with military families. Military families serve, too, and only when military spouses are at the table are we able to craft solutions that truly reflect their lived experience, support their needs, and strengthen our community for years to come.

October 7, 2024

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