Various stakeholders at the 2019 International Military Transition Research Summit advocated for new family-focused practice, research initiatives and policies to support military transitions.

The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work's Military and Veterans Programs recently hosted the fifth annual International Military Transition Research Summit in partnership with Prudential and the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR). Centered around the theme of military families, the summit, held Feb. 11-13, brought together researchers, policymakers and other key stakeholders to explore frameworks for improving both the theory and practice governing service members’ re-entry into civilian life.

Presentations at the event examined the multifaceted issues that affect military families during a service member’s transition back into civilian life, from health care and housing to interpersonal relationships and financial management. A roundtable discussion sought to pinpoint critical gaps in research, policy and practice that can inform efforts in each area moving forward.

“This summit pushed all of its participants to think outside of the bounds of research to consider the ways in which we define military families and the policies that encompass the services we provide to those families,” said USC Research Associate Professor Hazel Atuel, who organized the event with CIMVHR Associate Scientist Heidi Cramm.

USC Representatives at the Summit

Sara Kintzle, Research Associate Professor at the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR), gave one of the summit’s centerpiece presentations. Kintzle focused her presentation on Military Transition Theory, a theoretical framework she developed in partnership with CIR Director Carl Castro, to broaden the contextual understanding of the process of military transition. 

“Research indicates that the challenges thought to uniquely affect veterans leaving military service, such as finding employment, health care resources and an overall sense of purpose, impact veteran spouses in much the same way,” Kintzle said. “When we understand that every member of a family unit experiences the transition, we can begin to shift toward a more holistic, complete framework by which we understand military transitions.” 

Ana Hollander, MSW ‘18, also gave a presentation. As the daughter of an Operation Enduring Freedom-era combat veteran, she has dedicated her professional life to serving military families, including veterans at both government and nonprofit organizations, as well as in direct service to children on military bases in Okinawa, Japan, and the Netherlands. Hollander gave a presentation at the event that focused on the experience of military families, and in particular, of military-connected children. 

Contextualizing Military Transitions

Professor Shelley MacDermid-Wadsworth, director of the Military Family Research Institute and the Center for Families at Purdue University, introduced a new theoretical framework for understanding the complex process of transitioning out of the military in her presentation.

According to MacDermid-Wadsworth, “Transitioning out of the military is not a single, linear event, but a process couched in a larger context of factors that affect the family unit.” She pointed out that these factors—which may be internal or external to the family—can include bioecological settings such as workplace and community environments, family stressors, and sociocultural factors like race, class and gender.

Patricia Lester, director of the Nathanson Family Resilience Center and medical director of the UCLA Family STAR (Stress, Trauma And Resilience) Clinic at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, gave a presentation with a similar objective of repositioning the understanding of military transitions.

Lester’s discussion centered on her trauma-informed behavioral health program, FOCUS. Using a prevention-based approach to mental health care, FOCUS guides military families—with special attention afforded to military-connected children and military spouses—through a three-stage program: before deployment, during deployment and after deployment. FOCUS incorporates private family resilience training, group workshops and mobile technology platforms for delivering personalized care.

In her presentation, Sanela Dursun, director of research personnel and family support at Defence Research and Development Canada, advocated for paying increased attention to assisting families during their reintegration into the civilian sector. “Of the utmost importance is increasing military families’ awareness of and accessibility to federal services and benefits, supporting their sense of changing identity and meeting their health care needs,” she argued.

Redefining the Military Family

According to Atuel, “One of the overarching themes of the summit was redefining what exactly we mean when we refer to a military family, and how we can create systems that support a wider range of familial structures.”

As Nicola Fear, director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research at King’s College London, put it, “We typically think of military families as consisting of a male service member, a civilian wife and their children. However, there are more unmarried men and women, single mothers and nontraditional families in the armed forces than ever before.”

Acknowledging these changing dynamics, neuropsychologist Jane Nursey, director of the Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, sought to shed light on the rippling effects of psychological issues within military families. Service members are at increased risk of a number of mental health conditions—including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders—the consequences of which impact the family as a whole. As such, Nursey said, “We need to implement more holistic approaches to treating mental conditions within military families.”

Deborah Norris, associate professor at Mount Saint Vincent University, presented on the intersectional experience of the individual service member, the family unit and the broader community during transition—and the multifaceted role of resilience in these intersections.

In a similar vein, professor Rachel Dekel from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University urged attendees to consider the similarities in experience between members of an all-volunteer military (like the United States’) and a conscripted service military (like Israel’s). “No matter the structure of the armed forces in which they serve, military members all experience the phenomenon of straddling the military, their family and their community—and trying to meet the demands of all these worlds,” she said. Dekel stressed the importance of support system continua that take into account the role of colocation in shaping the identities of military families.

Policymaking That Supports Military Families

Finally, a number of presentations and panel discussions focused on building foundations for policymaking that can better support military families and the countries in which they live, serve and work.

Nick Armstrong, senior director for research and evaluation at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, and Charles Sevola, Jr., vice president of Veterans Initiatives at Prudential, collaborated on a presentation detailing the challenges of military spouse employment and promoting federal-level policy changes to support increased job portability for military spouses living abroad.

Job portability enables employees to maintain their careers regardless of location while offering economic development—and no local job loss—to the countries in which military spouses live. “Expanding job portability across sectors can increase professional advancement opportunities and improve financial security for military families deployed abroad while contributing to the global economy,” Armstrong explained.

Summarizing the highlights of the summit, Atuel concluded, “It’s exciting to see movement on the forefront of theory, practice and policy aimed at creating better support systems for our troops and their families.”