Communication Currents

Since September 11, 2001, more than two million service members have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan; many have served multiple tours in combat zones far from home. According to Department of Defense statistics, about half of these service members are married and more than 40% have children. Although service members have been stressed by repeated deployments, so have their spouses and children. As the National Leadership Council for Military Families recently concluded, “service members and their families are experiencing severe strain due to wartime deployments” due to the “length and frequency of these deployments and lack of sufficient dwell time for recovery and reintegration.” Thousands of military families have coped with multiple separations since 2001 and had limited time to reconnect after each separation.

In our own state, more than 3200 members of the Indiana National Guard returned home from Iraq and other overseas deployments in early 2009. Although service members participated in reintegration events shortly after returning home, no similar activities had been planned for their children. In response, the Purdue Military Family Research Institute, working in cooperation with the Indiana National Guard, created “Passport Towards Success,” a program designed to strengthen communication skills that help children and families reconnect following a parent’s military deployment. This brief essay summarizes findings from our research evaluating the initial version of the Passport program.

Although military deployments create multiple stressors, many military families demonstrate remarkable resiliency in the face of such stress. Resiliency refers to the ability to withstand and rebound from stressful events. Passport Towards Success is grounded in models of family resiliency, which highlight communication processes that help children and families rally in times of crisis to create a new sense of “normal” that fits changing circumstances. Children attend a half-day Passport event at the same time that their parents attend reintegration activities for service members and spouses.  

The Passport program rotates similar-age peers through three interactive stations (called “islands”) where they practice skills related to coping with stress, talking about emotions, and managing conflict. In the initial version, pre-school, elementary school and middle/high school children participated in the program. For each age group, facilitators, who are master’s level social service professionals, begin an island by introducing the relevant skills. Children then complete a set of enjoyable activities to practice those skills, after which debriefing discussions draw connections between the activities and children’s everyday lives.

On “feelings island,” for example, children make a reunion poster where they write and draw their answers to prompts such as “One thing I learned while my parent was gone,” “One thing that made me sad while my parent was gone” and “One thing I was proud of while my parent was gone.” These prompts are relevant for different ages; for example, a 5-year old might have learned to ride a bike whereas a 15-year old might have learned to drive an automobile. Facilitators pose the prompts to the group before children make their posters so that peers have an opportunity to share.    

Participants in our evaluation research were 161 children, ranging in age from 3-17 years, who attended one of ten Passport events held across the state of Indiana during April and May, 2009.  Our evaluation study addressed three questions: (a) were children who attended Passport events experiencing deployment- and reunion-related difficulties? (b) was the initial version of the Passport program delivered consistently, and as intended, across multiple sites? and (c) did children gain news ideas about communication skills that facilitate resiliency by participating in Passport? If so, which children found the program to be most useful? 

Multiple methods were used to address these questions. Before beginning the program, all children who were nine years and older reported on difficulties they had experienced during their parent’s deployment and return.  ne parent from each family also reported on difficulties their oldest child at home had experienced during the military parent’s deployment. After completing the program, children nine and older rated the degree to which they got new ideas about skills that facilitate resiliency. Graduate students from Communication, Psychology, and Education worked as research observers at Passport events. They rated the degree to which the program was being delivered as intended and took field notes about what worked well and what might be done differently. Passport facilitators also provided feedback at the end of each event.

Results revealed that children who attended Passport events were experiencing a number of stressors associated with their parent’s deployment and return. Between 50-85% of children reported deployment-related difficulties such as missing the deployed parent, worrying if the parent at home was alright, not sleeping well, and fighting more with siblings. Although less common, between one-third and one-half of children also reported difficulties after their parent returned home such as the deployed parent not seeing how they had changed or fighting with the deployed parent about family rules. Parents also perceived that their children had experienced difficulties during the deployment, including emotional symptoms (e.g., being sad), conduct problems (e.g., lying), hyperactivity, and problems getting along with peers, at rates far higher than have been found in large nationally-representative surveys of civilian families. 

Second, research observers perceived that the Passport program was delivered consistently, and as intended, at most events. Consistency was highest on islands with middle-school aged children but lowest with pre-school aged children. Based on this finding plus feedback from facilitators, the newest version of Passport requires that children be at least 5 years of age to participate. Debriefing discussions, which connect Passport activities to children’s everyday lives, also tended to decline over time; hence booster sessions have been added to remind facilitators about the importance of such discussions the night before each Passport event. 

Third, children as a group rated the program very favorably in terms of the degree to which they got new ideas about sharing feelings, coping with stress, and managing conflict. Perhaps most encouraging, the children who reported the highest level of deployment-related difficulties before beginning Passport also were the ones who rated the program as most useful afterwards. 

The Passport program shows how basic knowledge about communication and resiliency can be applied to support military families as they continue to cope with repeated deployments. Although guiding program principles remain in place, our evaluation research has resulted in several changes in how the Passport program has been offered at recent events. Passport also offers an example how universities can partner with the armed services to support military families, and some other states are now exploring how they might offer the program.