Young children's understandings and experiences of parental deployment within an Australian Defence Force family

Rogers, Marg; Sims, Margaret; Hathaway, Tanya; Elliott, Sue

doi:10.25952/5db243b085e6c

Cited by 2 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Children from Australian Defence families face many stressors, 7,8 including frequent and prolonged parental deployments, and parents training (for shorter periods) away from the family home. 9 Deployments are lengthy periods of service away from home (generally 5-9 months), whereas trainings are shorter periods of time (generally a few weeks, but up to 3 months).…”

Section: Children From Military Familiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Parental perspective of young children's social and emotional well-being and perceived parenting challenges • Summary of some resources and supports available • Identifies gaps in resourcing and supports, and issues of access limited negative impacts of deployments on family life, 13 whereas most studies have found the opposite. 7,8,[14][15][16] McGuire and colleagues 13 noted the sample characteristics of the ADF members and their families comprising fewer new ADF members and/or new younger couples were included in the study. Therefore, those surveyed were more likely to have established support networks and strategies for dealing with deployment-related separation.…”

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Defence service parents go away to train, then deploy, then return for periods of leave, then deploy again. 15 These disruptions affect children physically, 14 emotionally, 15 socially 16 and cognitively 7 (see the first two columns of Table A1 in the Appendix). Within a typical deployment cycle, there are pre-deployment training sessions away from home to prepare the Defence member, so household adjustments are required before, during and after the deployment.…”

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…17,18 In addition to the family impacts of the transitions associated with parental deployments, serving in war and peace-keeping zones and the overall nature of military culture may also negatively impact the Defence member. 7 Members are often exposed to traumatic events, and military culture itself can be traumatic for some members. 11 These negative impacts can result in members experiencing service-related injuries, medical and/or mental health conditions, 19 or moral injury, 20 which impacts family members.…”

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To further understand children's social adjustment that is evident in military family literature, 7,16 parents were asked to report their level of agreement if rules and routine tend to make their time with their children easier. Overall, 75.6% (n = 31) agreed that rules and routine helped most of the time and 24.4% (n = 10) reported that rules and routine helped about half the time.…”

Section: Quantitative Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parental perceptions of social and emotional well‐being of young children from Australian military families

Rogers,

Johnson,

Coffey

et al. 2023

Australian J Rural Health

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IntroductionMany Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Veteran families are affected by the stressors of Defence family life, including frequent and prolonged parental deployments, and frequent relocations.ObjectiveTo address a gap in information about Defence and Veteran (hereafter Defence) parents' knowledge, confidence and resources to support their young children's well‐being and build their resilience.DesignThis study used a mixed methods design to explore Defence parent's perceptions of their young children's (aged 2–8 years) social and emotional well‐being and understanding of their children's responses to unique stressors as well as their confidence in providing support. Data from 41 parents were available.FindingsOverall, parents reported positive well‐being evaluation of their children. However, just over a third of parents also reported that their children rarely cope well on two indicators combined (adapting to new situations and sharing negative emotions with others). Significantly, more than half of the parents (61%) were only partially confident in their ability to assist their children to cope with unique stressors in military families. Qualitative data provided further insights into children's struggle with relocations and parental absence and the challenges parents face in supporting them. Parents reported having limited access to effective age‐ and culturally appropriate resources to support their young children.DiscussionIn a first‐of‐its kind study, we found that Australian Defence parents reported their young children were coping on most of the key well‐being indicators. However, awareness of currently available supports for children remains a barrier as well as access to contextualised, age‐ and culturally appropriate resources are lacking.ConclusionThere is a need for access to free, quality, online, research‐based Australian resources to support young children from Defence families, especially for those living in regional and rural locations and are less likely to have access to mental health and other specialist supports.

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Section: Children From Military Familiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What This Paper Addsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Quantitative Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Parental perceptions of social and emotional well‐being of young children from Australian military families

Rogers,

Johnson,

Coffey

et al. 2023

Australian J Rural Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Best Practices of Child-Led Monitoring and Evaluation in the Development Aid Sector

Nickel

2023

Glocality

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The purpose of this study is to identify best practices in child-led monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the development aid sector. Children's views are gradually recognised as relevant in research, including the use of child-led research methods for M&E of programs and services in the development aid sector. There are three relevant components to assessing best practices of child-led M&E: the application of various methods, the ethical dimension, and the role of adults. Fourteen expert interviews and desk research were conducted to identify best practices. The findings reveal that while traditional methods require additional skills training and guidance by adults, participatory methods give children increased ownership of the process through various ways of expression. These, therefore, are suitable child-led research methods. Furthermore, the research reveals comprehensive methods to account for the ethical dimension of child-led M&E, such as the Nine Basic Requirements for Meaningful and Ethical Children's Participation, topics such as informed consent, payment and compensation, and the children's sense of ownership across the M&E cycle. The results validate various roles that adults play in child-led M&E. These roles include providing additional insights, fostering mutual support between children and adults through the expression of children's perspectives, and contributing to informed decision-making by incorporating the voices of children in programming in the development aid sector. 2 Nickel Glocality

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Young children's understandings and experiences of parental deployment within an Australian Defence Force family

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Parental perceptions of social and emotional well‐being of young children from Australian military families

Parental perceptions of social and emotional well‐being of young children from Australian military families

Best Practices of Child-Led Monitoring and Evaluation in the Development Aid Sector

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