Family resources - Marine Corps Times

Family Centers and Support Groups

Family centers act as one-stop places for members and their families to find information, education and assistance to help them manage the challenges and enjoy the benefits of military life.

Outreach is available for those in remote or isolated areas. The centers also serve mobilized National Guard and reserve members, Defense Department civilians and military retirees.

Centers typically provide services at no charge.

The Guard sets up family assistance centers as needed to help families of all components; about 400 are currently operating. The Guard also has permanent family assistance coordinators.

Each service calls its family centers something different: Army Community Service Centers; Marine and Family Service Centers; Fleet and Family Support Centers; Airmen and Family Readiness Centers; and Coast Guard Work-Life Centers.

Types of assistance include:

•Counseling by licensed therapists for coping with the stresses of military life.

•Crisis assistance for immediate, short-term help in a critical situation.

•Deployment and mobilization support services.

•Financial management education — investing, debt liquidation, budgeting, saving and retirement planning — via classes and individual consultations.

•Employment assistance to help service members and families find jobs and map out career strategies.

•Information and referrals to services and resources in the community.

•Outreach programs for families that are isolated, new to the military or geographically separated.

•Life skills education in parenting, stress management and other issues.

•Relocation assistance to help families move and adapt to new a location.

Depending on the service branch, the following programs may be provided at family centers:

•Family advocacy programs aimed at preventing spouse and child abuse and treating victims of such abuse.

•New parent-support programs offering home visits by nurses or other health experts who can answer questions about infant care.

•Special-needs family member assistance programs that offer information and support to family members who have requirements for medical, educational or mental health services.

Contacts

The Defense Department’s http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil is a gateway to information on quality-of-life programs and services. Active-duty families coping with injuries resulting from duty in Afghanistan and Iraq that need more help can find it at http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/troops/injuredsupport.

The services’ family support Web sites are: Army, http://www.MyArmyLifeToo.com; Navy, http://www.ffsp.navy.mil and http://www.lifelines.navy.mil; Air Force, http://ask.afpc.randolph.af.mil/famops and http://www.afcrossroads.com; Marine Corps, http://www.usmc-mccs.org.

For information on spouse employment, education and relocation, see http://www.milspouse.org. Federal and private-sector job information for spouses can be found at http://www.military.com/spouse.

DoD Job Search provides classified ads, referrals and résumé writing assistance at http://dod.jobsearch.org.

Families with special needs can find information and resources, including a community bulletin board, at http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/efm.

Militarystudent.org, at http://www.militarystudent.dod.mil, is a Defense Department Web site with information for military children, parents, leaders, school administrators, teachers and others involved in the education of the military child. Information is tailored to different age groups of children.

USA4MilitaryFamilies.org, at http://www.usa4militaryfamilies.dod.mil, is a continuing effort to engage and educate state policymakers, business leaders, not-for-profit organizations and other leaders about the needs of the military community. Examples of priority issues include in-state tuition, payday lending, military children in transition, spouse employment and issues affecting the Guard and reserve, such as child care.

The DoD’s America Supports You Web site, http://www.americasupportsyou.mil, links deployed troops and their families to private organizations offering a wide variety of support.

Separating service members can view a range of transition services to help ease their move back into the civilian sector. See the DoD TransPortal at http://www.DoDTransPortal.org for jobs, VA benefits and other information.

Family support groups

Family support groups, also called family readiness groups, are made up of spouses, parents and siblings of service members. They are generally organized through a unit before a deployment. Group leaders serve as a link between families and service members’ chains of command. Groups operate according to each unit’s needs.

The Army also has rolled out a Virtual Family Readiness Group Web system, linking deployed soldiers, their families, the family readiness group leader, unit commander, rear detachment and other family readiness personnel.

The portal helps provide a sense of community for family members who are far apart. Go to http://www.armyfrg.org or http://www.MyArmyLifeToo.com.

Ombudsmen

The ombudsman program, unique to the Navy and Coast Guard, is an information link between a unit’s commanding officer and its members’ families. A similar program, called key volunteers, operates in the Marine Corps.

Ombudsmen are volunteer spouses chosen by unit commanding officers. They are trained in effective listening and stress management, and their job is to refer those in need to the right help.