The risk for mental health problems and relational difficulties in military service members, spouses, and children is well-established. Yet, few services are available for families, particularly during the formative preschool years, when healthy parent–child relationships are crucial to the attainment of major socio-emotional milestones that form the foundation for later development. This paper describes the adaptation of a previously established military and trauma-informed preventive intervention, Families OverComing Under Stress (FOCUS) for use with families with a preschool-aged child (FOCUS for Early Childhood; FOCUS-EC). Grounded in theory and research on family resilience, FOCUS-EC aims to support parents as leaders of the family by providing developmental guidance and psychoeducation on deployment and reintegration, facilitate the construction of a family narrative, and enhance parenting strategies and the parent–child relationship. Furthermore, FOCUS-EC was adapted for use in a telehealth platform, enabling clinicians to reach military and veteran families in their homes, which is particularly useful for high-risk civilian-dwelling military families (including Reserve and National Guard). Pilot work and ongoing data collection as part of a randomized control trial suggest that FOCUS-EC is acceptable and feasible for military and veteran families with preschoolers.
FOCUS for Early Childhood: A Virtual Home Visiting Program for Military Families with Young Children
Type
Summary
Citation
Mogil, C., Hajal, N., Garcia, E., Kiff, C., Paley, B., Milburn, N., Lester, P. (2015). FOCUS for Early Childhood: A Virtual Home Visiting Program for Military Families with Young Children. Contemporary Family Therapy, 37, 199-208. doi:doi:10.1007/s10591-015-9327-9