This article reports on a qualitative study of Australian parents' perceptions of their children's reactions to a military deployment as well as their help-seeking behaviours. Thirty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted with 34 Australian Defence Force (ADF) parents and 33 non-deployed parents (67 participants). Twenty-nine interviews were with couples and nine were with individuals. The findings revealed that this group of children generally fared poorly in terms of physical and mental health, and behavioural outcomes. Children and adolescents had a number of needs which were not identified, assessed or treated, and prevention programmes were reported to be limited. Factors that are associated with positive and negative outcomes from the families' perspective are outlined. The data showed how developing a deeper understanding of military families' needs, as well as positive worker-parent relationships, would enhance the therapeutic alliance between parents and service providers. Implications for prevention and intervention approaches in relation to both policy and service delivery are outlined.
Children in military families experience a unique combination of stressors associated with military life that may affect every stage of their lives, including their mental health, as well as disrupt their schooling and consequent social, emotional, and academic development. A review of the key issues faced by children is presented including the challenges in providing school-based social work support. A case vignette is used to illustrate how an ecological framework can address many of the unique aspects of military life that affect children, such as mobility, multiple deployments, recent relocation, mental health and wellbeing, family stress, and their impact on social, emotional, and academic outcomes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.