Institute for Health and Security of Military Families to evaluate Marine couples program
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015
MANHATTAN — The Institute for the Health and Security of Military Families at Kansas State University has received a grant to evaluate an educational workshop designed to help Marine couples with reintegration following deployment.
The program, Marine Corps Mobilization and Deployment, Reintegration: Strong Marine Couples, targets couples 45 to 60 days following a Marine's return from deployment.
The institute, part of the School of Family Studies and Human Services in the university's College of Human Ecology, is collaborating with the Office of Military Community and Family Policy, Department of Defense.
The program includes workshops on topics such as understanding common changes that result from deployment, stressors and how to overcome them, communication, renegotiation of roles and responsibilities, finances, and how to address a variety of individual and couple needs throughout the reintegration process.
Evaluation of the program will help ensure that service members and their families — the ultimate audience — are better prepared for the challenges of military life, fulfilling the family readiness programs' mission of promoting personal, financial and deployment readiness, according to Briana Nelson Goff, director of the Institute for the Health and Security of Military Families.
The award is a subcontract from the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University. This is the first direct collaboration between the two institutes, Goff said. The project includes a systematic review and evaluation of four Department of Defense programs targeted for program evaluation.
