Network Supports and Resiliency among U.S. Military Spouses with Children with Special Health Care Needs

Military families function within a highly demanding workplace, one in which the readiness and fitness of servicemembers and their spouses figure prominently. Long duty hours, family separations, threat of harm, multiple deployments, and geographic relocations are common (Bowen, Martin, & Mancini, 2013; SteelFisher, Zaslavsky, & Blendon, 2008). The demographic composition of the U.S. military parallels its civilian counterpart in many respects, including the proportion of families with children in need of special services. As compared to the civilian population, however, military families who have children with special needs face extraordinary challenges with potential to threaten their functioning and adaptation. Scholars have called for inquiry into the experiences of military families, spouses, and children (Booth et al., 2007; Drummet, Coleman, & Cable, 2003; Palmer, 2008). The underlying assumption of this article is that understanding how military families whose children have special needs successfully manage complex circumstances, first, can inform the field's understanding of resilience and, second, can shape military policy and practice (MacDermid Wadsworth, 2010). The experiences of family members are important in their own right and because family adaptation, support, and resources affect servicemembers' performance and retention (Martin & Sherman, 2012). With rare exception (Taylor et al., 2005; Watanabe, Jensen, Rosen, & Newby, 1995), however, little has been written about family perceptions of support networks and the role they play in military life, in particular, parenting children with special needs. In the context of the social organization (SO) theory of community action and change (Mancini & Bowen, 2013), this investigation begins to address that gap. We examine the relative contribution of formal and informal network support to variation in self-reports of resiliency among a group of civilian mothers (Key Spouses) who are married to active duty Air Force (AF) members and who have children with special health care needs (CSHCN). We provide an overview of the military context, discuss the characteristics of CSHCN, define formal and informal network supports, review the SO theory of community action and change, and embed these concepts within a resilience framework.MILITARY FAMILIESThe U.S. Armed Forces is the largest U.S. employer. Currently, approximately 1.4 million men and women serve in the active-duty component; another 850,000 serve in the reserve component (National Guard or other reserves). The majority of these servicemembers are married (about 52%), and approximately two in five have children in the home (Martin & Sherman, 2012). The typical servicemember enters parenthood early, has a dual-career household, and lives offbase (Martin & Sherman, 2009; Segal & Segal, 2004). More than two million servicemembers have deployed to war zones since 2001 with longer (more than 6 months) and repeated deployments being the norm (Bowen et al., 2013). Increases in deployment have led to longer and more frequent family separations and recognition that nondeployed spouses adopt expanded roles in parenting and household management (Spera, 2009). Children with Special Health Care NeedsDefinition and Prevalence of CSHCN. The term special needs is a nonspecific one that has multiple meanings. Alternatively, the federal Maternal & Child Health Bureau (MCHB) defines ''children with special health care needs'' as ''those who have or are at increased risk for a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition and who also require health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally'' (McPherson et al., 1998, p. 138). This definition encompasses conditions from significant disabilities to chronic medical problems, including developmental concerns, above-routine use of services, and limited functional ability. …