On July 22, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel held a hearing on oversight of family support programs.
Chair Susan Davis (D-CA) said, “Today we will turn our attention to the multitude of family support programs within the services and the Department of Defense [DoD]. While we have focused on several of these issues in the past, this is the first subcommittee hearing in over a decade that will solely focus on family support programs that are so important and vital to our military families during these challenging times. The burden of eight years of conflict has not only fallen on our service members. A large portion of that burden has also fallen on their families as well, and unfortunately their plight is often overshadowed…The toll is especially significant on those most vulnerable our military children. The number of military children who are seeking mental health care since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom has more than doubled. And, many children are being forced to wait months to receive treatment because access to care is not sufficient…I do not mean to imply that nothing has been done for families, quite the contrary. The services and the department have undertaken efforts to improve programs and assistance for military families. However, there is more that can and must be done to support all of those who defend our nation, and that includes military families.”
Ranking Member Joe Wilson (R-SC) said, “Meeting the needs of military families has never been more challenging or complex. We are a nation at war, fighting on two fronts and the strains of those wars translate directly and immediately to the families of the members of the Armed Forces. When you disrupt the military family unit by deploying a key member of that family a host of issues arise that stress all aspects of family life: economic, physical and mental health, personal finances, interpersonal relationships, and many more areas. This subcommittee, the Department of Defense, and the military services have taken any number of initiatives to address the needs of military families… Yet, despite all that has been accomplished, there remains evidence that the family support system may not be completely effective. While I know that the Department of Defense and the military services are committed to assisting and supporting military families, I am not convinced that the provision of those services is fully coordinated and integrated. So I am interested in hearing from our witnesses as to how effective the coordination and integration effort is.”
Arthur Myers, principal director of Military Community and Family Policy for the Department of Defense (DoD), addressed several programs available to military families, including education: “A key quality of life issue is the education of military children. Service members often make decisions about assignments based on the availability of quality educational opportunities for their children. The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) provides quality pre-kindergarten through 12th grade educational opportunities and services to military dependents around the globe, who would otherwise not have access to U.S.-accredited public education…The ongoing relocation of thousands of military students through force structure changes has created an urgent need and responsibility to enrich and expand partnerships with military-connected communities to ensure the best possible educational opportunities for military children. DoDEA works collaboratively with the secretary of Education to ease the transition of military students, to use DoDEA funds to share experience with local educational agencies (LEAs) [that] educate military students, and to provide programs such as distance learning and teacher training to LEAs with military students undergoing transition from force structure changes. DoDEA is developing a new approach to provide a fully accredited virtual school program for grades 9-12 for eligible students. Beginning in school year 2009-2010, DoDEA plans to increase course offerings within the existing distance learning program to implement a comprehensive accredited virtual high school by School Year 2010-2011. A middle and upper elementary program is also planned for delivery in subsequent years.”
Chief Master Sergeant James Roy USAF discussed the Air Force’s efforts to improve child care for military families, saying, “Air Force families lead challenging lives that include higher operations tempo, multiple deployments, increased mobilization, longer periods of time away from home, and frequent relocations, in addition to normal life stressors. Readily available, high-quality, and affordable child care and youth programs continue to be workforce issues with direct impact on mission readiness…We continued to increase available, affordable, high-quality child care spaces for airmen.”
He added, “Significant progress has been made this year toward helping airmen and their families balance the competing demands of parenting and military service. Readily available, high-quality, and affordable child care and youth programs continue to be a workforce issue with direct impact on mission readiness. The Expanded Child Care program provides 16,000 hours of child care each month to assist airmen who require additional child care support during increased shifts, deployments, or when they work in excess of a normal duty day. The Returning Home Care program supports airmen returning from a 30-day or longer deployment in support of contingency operations with 16 hours of free child care. To ensure child care is affordable when a space is unavailable at the child development center or school age program, the Family Child Care Subsidy program provides an average subsidy of $142 per child per month in Air Force Family Child Care homes. Our partnership with the Air Force Aid Society in the Give Parents a Break program provides several hours of free child care each month to parents who are dealing with challenges inherent to military life, including deployments, remote tours of duty, and extended hours.”
Colonel Cory Lyman, assistant director of Individual and Family Support Policy for Manpower & Personnel in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, discussed the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program. “Reserve component family programs address reservist family issues that differ in meaningful ways from the needs of active component families. For instance, reserve component families are community-based and connected; they are also dispersed geographically throughout more than 4,000 communities nationwide. These realities create challenges and also offer great opportunities to link with community resources…To help reserve component members throughout the deployment cycle, the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program was developed. This program is focused on the reserve component member and works hand-in-hand with the family program to enhance family readiness and help to smooth the potential challenges of military deployments.” Col. Lyman added, “Because of their geographic dispersion and community-based roots, reserve component members and their families experience some unique impacts of military service including challenges posed to command communication and access of families to support services. These challenges are addressed through extensive outreach efforts by family support professionals and dedicated family program volunteers, by extensive web-based resources (e.g., guardfamily.org, militaryhomefront.dod.mil), by 24-7 toll free support and referral programs (e.g., Military One-Source), and by committed and caring commanders who also understand that family support is a vitally important readiness issue. DoD-sponsored programs are also established to support our reserve component families across the deployment cycle. As mentioned earlier, the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program (YRRP) is a core deployment support program. Its resources are generally situated at the National Guard Joint Force Headquarters in all 50 states and four territories; this program is available to serve all reserve component members and their families. In less than a year of operation, the DoD Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program has tracked the completion of 1,350 reintegration events and has delivered critical information to over 129,000 Reserve Component members and their families.”
Sergeant Major Kenneth Preston, U.S. Army; Sergeant Major Carlton Kent, U.S. Marine Corps; and Master Chief Petty Officer Rick West, U.S. Navy, also testified.
