Joining Forces

Joining Families

Volume 12, Issue 2 • Spring 2012

R e a l W o r l d R e s e a r c h f o r F a m i l y  A d v o c a c y P r o g r a m s

F e at u r e d I n t e r v i e w

Educating Civilian Social Work Professionals about
Military Culture and Care
An interview with Mary Ann Forgey, PhD
Mary Ann Forgey
Mary Ann Forgey, PhD, is an associate professor at Fordham University Graduate Schoolof Social Service. Dr. Forgey received her BA
and MSW from Boston College, and her PhD
from Columbia Univer­sity. She teaches a rangeof practice courses in the foundation andadvanced years including electives that she
developed on intimate partner violence (IPV)and most recently military social work. She has
been the principal investigator on two research
projects related to IPV within the military, theresults of which have been published in the
Journal of Family Violence, Violence and Victims
In This Issue
This issue features an interview with Mary Ann Forgey, PhD, who offers acourse on military social work at Fordham University. This course provides amodel for educating civilian behavioral health and medical professionals about
military culture.
In this issue, we also present the latest child maltreatment statistics from two
points of view: the national rates of child maltreatment from Child Maltreatment
2010 and from a recent research project that estimates the prevalence of childmaltreatment in the United States. Building Bridges to Research discusses two
statistical concepts, incidence and prevalence, that are important for understanding the differences between the statistics presented in these two articles on childmaltreatment rates.
Websites of Interest features several military websites that have helpful information for civilian practitioners who want to learn about services that are available
for military personnel and their families.
Contents
Educating Civilian Social Work Professionals about Military Culture and Care .... 1
Building Bridges to Research: Incidence and Prevalence: Two Basic
Measures of Event Occurrence............................................................................. 3
National Child Maltreatment Reports: Current Statistics and Trends..................... 4
Websites of Interest.............................................................................................. 8and the Journal of Social Work Education. Prior
to entering academia, Dr. Forgey was employed
as a civilian social worker for the Departmentof the Army in Wiesbaden, Germany. She also
worked as a child protection social worker in
Boston, Massachusetts.

Dr. Forgey’s course on military social work
is offered to advanced social work students
at Fordham University in New York City. The
course is entitled: Social Work Practice with Service Members, Veterans and their Families.
Civilian providers who understand theunique issues of military service and deployment will be better able to assist service
members and their families. We have asked Dr.
Forgey to share her approach in teaching military social work: the content of her course andhow her students have benefitted from it.
Dr. McCarroll: What do you expect social
workers to learn from your course about
military social work?
Dr. Forgey: Although there are a few veterans who enroll in this elective, the majorityof students are non-veteran civilians who do
not have much familiarity with the social work
services provided to military or veteran populations. Many of the students are not awarethat there are uniformed social workers in the
military or that there are civilian social workers
working on installations. Many of the students
are not aware of the rich tradition within social
Continued on page 2

Civilian providers who
understand the uniqueissues of deployment
will be better able toassist service members
and their families.

work education of caring for those who have
served. For example, many students do notknow of the critical role that the Smith College School of Social Work played in training
civilians to work with World War II veteransand the role that they continue to play today(Jacobs, 2009). So, I hope that my students will
gain more understanding of the way that social
work developed within the armed services,
both in terms of uniformed officer and civilian
positions, and within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) system of care and what thesystem of services looks like today.
Dr. McCarroll: How do you educate yourstudents about the major social service
frameworks within both the military andcivilian sectors?
Dr. Forgey: The course focuses on the social
service frameworks within the Department of
Defense (DOD), the VA and in civilian social
service agencies that have designated programs
to serve military and veteran populations.
With regard to DOD, they are introduced to
the various roles that social workers have whenworking within that framework. Rene Robichaux, PhD, Social Work Programs Manager, US
Army Medical Command, has spoken to theJoining Forces
Joining Families
Editor-in-Chief
James E. McCarroll, PhD
Email:
Editorial Advisor
James.McCarroll.CTR@usuhs.mil COL Nancy D. Ruffin, LCSW, MSC, USA
Family Advocacy Program Manager
Headquarters, Department of the Army
Joining Forces Joining Families
is a publication of the U. S.
Army Installation Management Command and theFamily Violence and Trauma
Project of the Center for the
Study of Traumatic Stress(CSTS), Bethesda, Maryland
20814-4799, tel. 301-2952470. CSTS is part of the
Department of Psychiatry of
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences,which is our nation’s federal
medical school.

2 • Joining Forces/Joining Families

Editorial Consultants
David M. Benedek, MD, COL, MC, USA
Professor and Scientist
Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences
dbenedek@usuhs.mil
Nancy T. Vineburgh, MA
Director, Office of Public Education
and Preparedness
Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
Email: nvineburgh@usuhs.milclass via video conference about these various
roles. He addresses what uniformed and civilian
DOD social workers do and their relationshipto each other. The students are also introduced
to the various roles that a social worker canhave in a VA hospital and a Vet Center. I usually
have speakers from these entities present in ourclassroom. The last service framework is madeup of the civilian agencies (non-VA) that areserving military populations. There are now
many specialized programs within the civilian
sector focused on serving military and veteran
populations and their families. I try to havespeakers come from various civilian agencies
to speak about their work and the challenges aswell as the strengths of being a civilian agency
serving a military population.
Dr. McCarroll: Could you describe yourstudents’ attitudes and feelings toward themilitary and how these may influence their
responses to the needs of clients within the
military population? Do you think their selfawareness has changed as a result of yourcourse?
Dr. Forgey: The students often come inwith many stereotypes about who joins themilitary and why they join. As they learn moreof the facts about who is in the military andthe reasons for joining, they understand how
their previous thinking was often based moreon stereotypes rather than factual information. They also become more aware of theirown civilian world-view and how this view may
result in a misinterpretation of a case situation.
For example, many students find it difficult tounderstand how a service member could want
to be deployed or redeployed. Their difficultywith this usually stems from viewing deployment through their civilian lens. As the students
learn more about military training and culture,they begin to understand that for service members, deployment is seen as a critical part of thejob that they have been intensely trained to do
as a member of a unit. Willingness to deploy
is about being a responsible member of thisorganizational team.
Dr. McCarroll: You emphasize the importanceof having sensitivity to the military culture
when working with this population. How is thisdifferent from any other population?
Dr. Forgey: For many of the non-veteran
civilian students in the class, the idea that the
military is a separate culture is new knowledge.
Continued on p. 5
Spring 2012

Building Bridges to Research: 				Incidence and Prevalence: Two Basic Measures ofEvent Occurrence
By James E. McCarroll, PhD, and David M. Benedek, MD
Prevalence andincidence are twobasic measuresof the occurrenceof events inpopulations.

Dr. Forgey noted that her course on social
work in the military highlights the key researchfindings of the prevalence of the major healthand mental health issues facing service members and veterans. A second goal of her course
is to help students learn about how prevalence
research is done and help them become morecritical consumers of this type of research. In
this article, we present some basic measures ofthe occurrence of events. Prevalence and incidence are two basic measures of the occurrenceof events in populations. In medical literature,they usually refer to diseases, but can be taken
as measures for almost any event. These terms
are often used inappropriately and interchangeably in journal articles so it is importantto keep their differences in mind.
Prevalence.
Prevalence is the number of persons in adefined population with the characteristic inquestion or under study. There are several different types of prevalence, but here we illustrate two of them: point prevalence and periodprevalence. Point prevalence is the number of
persons with a characteristic at a single time
point. This measure is often presented in crosssectional research. An example is a study inwhich the research question is “How many
people in the Army currently have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?”
Period prevalence.
A second type of prevalence is periodprevalence. This type of prevalence reports thenumber of persons who experienced the event(e.g., had the disease) within a given time period. This type of prevalence is less commonlymeasured because it is a combination of incidence (see below) and prevalence. It is definedas the number of persons with the characteristic (or disease) at the beginning of the time
period plus the number of person who develop
the disease during the time period.
Prevalence proportion.
The more common measure that is reported is the prevalence proportion. For thismeasure, no time dimension is involved. The
prevalence number is often expressed as a

http://www.CSTSonline.org

percentage of a population at a given time. Thismeasure is sometimes stated as the prevalence
rate, but this terminology is incorrect because
no time period is specified. For example, one
could report the proportion of persons in agiven population who smoke or use drugs or
are overweight or whatever characteristic isunder study.
Incidence.
Incidence is the number of new cases in atime period. This is a measure of change or,alternatively, a measure of transition: from wellto sick or from uninjured to injured.
Incidence rate.
Whether a measure is an incidence or an
incidence rate is easy to recognize because for
an incidence rate to exist, time has to pass. The
incidence rate is the number of new cases of anevent in a specified population over a specified time period. It is calculated by dividing
the number of cases by the population. It canthen be multiplied by a constant such as 1,000
to get the rate per 1,000 in that population for
the time period under study. For example, one
could report that the number of new cases ofa disease is increasing regardless of the time
period in question. This would be an example
of a measure of incidence. On the other hand,an analysis of a database of maltreatment cases
could count the number of new cases of maltreatment during a year per unit of population(e.g., rate per 1,000 of new cases per year).This
would be an incidence rate.
Both incidence and prevalence are building
blocks for more complex concepts such as analyses of the risk of the occurrence of an event.
An example of a measure of risk is the odds
ratio (or rate ratio). This measure compares theincidence of an event in one population to theincidence of the same event in another population. Much more complex analyses are conducted to compare risk in populations, but they
all start with the basic concepts described here.
The investigator must specify the event in question, the population (estimated by sampling) inquestion, and the time period of interest. From
this starting point, a research design is determined.
Continued on page 8
Joining Forces/Joining Families • 3

National Child Maltreatment Reports: 			
Current Statistics and Trends
By James E. McCarroll, PhD, David M. Benedek, MD
Several recent,national reports onchild maltreatment
present a picture of
the current statistics
as well as trends thathave occurred overrecent years.

Several recent, national reports on childmaltreatment present a picture of the current
statistics as well as trends that have occurred
over recent years. One of these, Child Maltreatment 2010, gives the U.S. national rates of childmaltreatment. The second report, the National
Incidence Study-4 (NIS-4), gives prevalence
estimates based on research.
Child Maltreatment 2010 is the latest reportfrom the Children’s Bureau, U.S Department
of Health and Human Services. This annual
report provides national data about childabuse and neglect known to Child Protective
Services (CPS) agencies in the United States
during fiscal year 2010 (FY10). Since it reports
identified cases, it is a prevalence report dealing
with treated cases [Editor’s note: See Building
Bridges to Research: Incidence and Prevalencein this issue of JFJF.] This report is a useful tool
for personnel in the military family advocacy
programs as it gives state-by-state data that
may be helpful in establishing contacts andaccessing state resources. The report gives dataon victims, perpetrators, and many other topics related to child abuse and neglect such asservices available to families and state agencies.
The estimated national child abuse rate
for FY10 was 9.2 per 1,000 children. This rate
is approximately 65% higher than the estimated FY10 Army rate of 5.9 per thousand.
It is difficult to compare the relative percentages of types of maltreatment in civilian
maltreatment cases found by CPS to cases in
the Army. In civilian cases victims are often
found to have been victims of more than one
type of maltreatment whereas in the Armymost victims have only one type of maltreatment recorded per year. Also, the CPS reports
have an “Other” category that includes typesof maltreatment not often seen in the military such as child abandonment, threats ofharm to the child, and congenital drug addiction. These “Other” reports were recorded in
10.3% of victims reported to CPS. Despite thedifferences in reporting between Army andcivilian agencies, this article reports the differences in the rates observed by CPS as well as
by the Army in order to give an approximate
comparison. Of cases substantiated by CPS
and the Army, the percentages in 2010 were:

4 • Joining Forces/Joining Families

Neglect: CPS=81%, Army=66%; Physical abuse
CPS=19%, Army=19%; Emotional (Psychological) CPS=8%, Army=10%; Sexual CPS=9%,
Army=5%. Thus, it appears that the civilian
sector is higher than the Army in neglect andsexual abuse while there is little difference
between CPS and the Army for physical andemotional (psychological) abuse.
Another report on child maltreatment is the
National Incidence Study-4 (NIS-4); a periodic
study mandated by Congress to estimate theprevalence of child maltreatment in the U.S.
Data for the NIS-4 were collected in 2005-2006.
The NIS-4 data were obtained through a representative sampling design of counties across the
U. S. As opposed to the annual Child Maltreatment report of CPS cases, the NIS-4 is a
population study of a much broader sample ofcases. Its perspective is beyond that of the CPS
reports, as the NIS-4 includes not only children
reported to CPS, but also additional children
who were recognized by community professionals as maltreated children. These “sentinels”
include staff who have contact with children
and families through law enforcement, publicschools, day care centers, hospitals, and voluntary social service and mental health agencies.
The NIS-4 has two standards for reporting: a Harm Standard, in which the reported
children were maltreated, and an Endangerment Standard. The Endangerment Standard
estimates include all the Harm Standard
children and children who were not yet harmed
by maltreatment, but who experienced abuseor neglect that placed them in danger of being
harmed according to the views of community
professionals or child protective service agencies.
Under the Harm Standard, approximately
1.25 million children experienced maltreatment. About 44% of these children were abusedand 61% were neglected. The rate of childmaltreatment under the Harm Standard was
17.1 per 1,000, which corresponds to about one
child in every 58 children. This rate was about
double the rate of 9.2 per 1,000 cases reported
to CPS in Child Maltreatment 2010. Given
the broader sources of input, this result is not
surprising. Of the abused children in the NIS-4,
58% experienced physical abuse, 24% expeSpring 2012

rienced sexual abuse, and 27% experienced
emotional abuse. Several categories of neglect
were classified: 47% educational neglect, 38%
physical neglect, and 25% emotional neglect.
(As was the case with Child Maltreatment 2010,
the sums of types of maltreatment will not add
to 100% since the NIS-4 classifies children in
every category that applies.)
Under the Harm Standard, the NIS-4 founda 26% decrease in the rate of maltreatmentcompared to the NIS-3, from 23.1/1,000 to
17.1/1,000 children. The prevalence rate perthousand of all specific categories of abusedecreased under the Harm Standard: the sexual
abuse rate decreased by 44%, physical abuse
by 23%, and emotional abuse by 33%. There
were no statistically reliable changes in neglect
under the NIS-4 compared to the NIS-3.
A different picture emerges under theEndangerment Standard in which an estimatedalmost 3 million children were counted. This
corresponds to approximately one child in 25
in the U.S. Under this standard, 77% of thechildren were neglected and 29% were abused.
Of the abused children, 57% were physicallyabused 36% were emotionally abused, and 22%
were sexually abused. For neglect, 53% were
physically neglected, 52% were emotionallyneglected, and 16% were educationally neglected. Under the Endangerment Standard there
were significant decreases in all categories ofabuse, but a significant increase in emotional
neglect. The prevalence rate of the number ofchildren who experienced abuse declined 38%.
Featured Interview, 				Often, I will hear students say, “I never thought
From page 2of the military as a separate culture.” So, thefirst step is helping them understand this andto gain some appreciation of military culture.
Once the students accept this idea, much ofwhat we teach in social work education about
Many students areworking cross-culturally applies.
not aware of the rich
For example, there are different perspectives
within social work about how to be
tradition within social
culturally responsive. The most familiar is thework education ofmodernist perspective that emphasizes theneed to gain specific cultural knowledge suchcaring for those who
as how the cultural group is organized (e.g.
have served.
different branches of service), how it functions(e.g. rank, centrality of the unit), the values(e.g. collectivist values, mission first), and important rituals. However, it is also important,as it is with other cultures, to appreciate thediversity within the culture and to realize that
there are different levels of acculturation. For
http://www.CSTSonline.org

There was a 29% decrease in the rate of physicalabuse, a 48% decrease in the rate of emotional
abuse, but an 83% increase in the rate of emotional neglect.
Conclusions of the NIS-4 were that there
was a decrease in rates of all categories of abusein both standards. Further analysis remains to
be done on the basis of the increase in emotional neglect. The authors noted that since the
NIS-3, there has been increased collaboration
between CPS agencies and agencies that serve
domestic violence and substance abuse programs. The increase in the rate of neglect may
reflect this increased attention and collaboration.
Much more material is presented in the
NIS-4 report including data on child victim age
and sex, race and ethnicity, disability, parental
and family characteristics, socio-economic
status and perpetrator data. The NIS-4 report
represents a national benchmark for describing child abuse and neglect in the U.S. society.
Military family advocacy programs may benefit
from studying the results in this very comprehensive report as a means of bettering their understanding of child maltreatment in general.

References
Child Maltreatment 2010. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
programs/cb/pubs/cm10/index.htm

National Incidence Study 4. http://www.acf.hhs.
gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/
index.html

example, a service member who was drafted
during the Vietnam War may have a very different level of acculturation to the military than asoldier who volunteered post-9/11.
Being culturally responsive also requires thestudent to examine their own attitudes and feelings toward the military and veteran populations and the potential impact of these attitudes
and feelings on their work. For example, somestudents say that they are motivated to do thiswork because they see war as dehumanizing
and want to help service members or veterans
recover from this dehumanizing experience.
While it is important that they are in touchwith these motives, it is also critical for themto examine the assumptions on which thesemotives are based. Are they assuming that thisdehumanization is or should be the experienceof every service member? If so, then they might
not be as open to hearing about more positive
Continued on p. 6
Joining Forces/Joining Families • 5

Featured Interview, from page 5

Often, I will hear
students say, “I neverthought of the military
as a separate culture.”

and growth- producing military experiences.
At the other extreme, there are students
who come into the course somewhat enamoredwith everything military and idealize service
members or veterans in a one-dimensional
way. If the social worker conveys this idealization to the service member, it may be moredifficult for the service member or veteran to
be open about negative feelings toward themilitary or their own experiences. In both cases, helping the students get in touch with theirattitudes and feelings toward the population,
their underlying assumptions and potential
impact helps them to develop more of a “notknowing” stance toward their clients where theclient is allowed to be the expert.
Lastly, an important part of being culturally responsive within social work is to understand issues of power and oppression, which
can occur both between the military and civilian society and within the military, and how
experiences of oppression may impact a service
member or veteran. An example of how themilitary as a group has experienced oppressionis the way that our nation treated service members and veterans after the Vietnam War. There
are lasting effects of this today as seen in thelarge number of homeless veterans. The civilian helpers, including the social work profession, were part of this lack of response and, attimes, hostile response. This history is part ofthe institutional memory of the military and,is part of the distrust of outside helpers. Social
work students need to understand the role thatpast and current experiences of oppression
might be playing in the service member’s orveteran’s willingness or lack thereof to engage
with outside helpers. In other words, it is partof understanding the resistance that one might
encounter, especially as a civilian, working witha military population.
Dr. McCarroll: You have explained thatpart of your course analyzes the changing
demographic profile of the military
population and the implications of changing
demographics for social work practice. Whatis the rationale behind this?
Dr. Forgey: There are two reasons. First, I
want them to challenge any stereotypes thatthey have about who is or was in the military.
I often do this by giving them a short military demographics quiz. I then analyze their
responses in the aggregate so that their individ-

6 • Joining Forces/Joining Families

ual responses are anonymous, but the class as awhole knows how they did and each individual
student knows how he or she did. The students
then use the demographic information currently available to self-correct their own answers.
For the most part, they do very poorly on theirinitial responses. I also ask the students in small
groups to think about the answers that wereincorrect and why they thought this way. This
exercise helps them get to the source of theirstereotypic thinking.
The second reason for having the students
analyze the changing demographic profile is to
give them some experience in looking up thisinformation, given that it is not static. In the
future, I want them to continue to look at thisinformation as a way to guard against stereotypic thinking.
Dr. McCarroll: How do you help them develop
an understanding of the current health, mental
health and social service needs of service
members, veterans, and their families?
Dr. Forgey: I try to highlight the key
research findings related to the prevalence ofthe major health and mental health issues facing service members and veterans. The mostprominent are traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression,
substance abuse, and suicide. I present the
major research findings on how these issues are
impacting the service members and veteransand their families. In doing this, the students
also learn something about how prevalence research is done and thereby become more criticalconsumers of this research. Many students also
express surprise at some of the findings. An
example is the estimated 15-25% of the service
members returning from deployments who
screen positively for PTSD. Many come into thecourse with the idea that almost all deployed
service members will develop PTSD. So mostthink the number should be much higher. In
reviewing the studies they also become moresophisticated about issues related to severity
and co-morbidity of problems.
Dr. McCarroll: You also want students todevelop increased sensitivity to the particularneeds of special populations serving within
the military such as women, gays andlesbians, and immigrants. What are someof the challenges facing social workers inaddressing the needs of these populations andhow does this differ from civilian practice?
Dr. Forgey: Each of these groups faces simiSpring 2012lar challenges in the civilian world, but theyplay out a bit differently within the military.
For example, in both the civilian world andin the military, women are disproportionately
impacted by sexual harassment and assault.
However, in the civilian work world, they usually can more easily separate themselves suchas by quitting the job, for example. Within the
military, this separation is not usually possible, especially during deployment. Also, inthe military the victim of sexual harassment
or assault is more dependent on members of
the unit for their own survival. As a result, thestakes are even higher for reporting someone
within the unit given the critical importance ofunit cohesiveness and morale.
Although gays and lesbians are now allowed to serve openly in the military, there arestill challenges ahead, which are different fromthose faced by gays and lesbians in the civilian
world. For example, with same sex marriage
legalized in some states, an issue that has yet to
be decided is whether the spouses of gay andlesbian soldiers will have the same benefits,
such as family housing, as heterosexual married couples.
Immigrants serving in the military, particularly, non-citizens who are on the fast track
to citizenship, face many challenges as well. To
help students appreciate the power differential
involved, I ask the students to consider the situation of a female immigrant soldier who is a
non-citizen and experiences sexual harassment
or sexual assault. Given her strong desire forcitizenship, she may be very reticent to makeSelected Publications Related to Intimate Partner Violence
Forgey MA, Badger L, Gilbert T, Hansen J. (In Press). Using standardized clients to train social workers in intimatew partner violence
assessment. Journal of Social Work Education.
Forgey MA, Badger L, Krase K. (2011). The development of an evidence
based assessment protocol for intimate partner violence in the US
Army. Journal of Evidence Based Social Work Practice; 8:323-248.
Forgey MA & Badger L. (2010). Patterns of intimate partner violence
and associated risk factors among married enlisted female soldiers.
Violence and Victims; 25: 45-61.
Allen M & Forgey MA. (2007) Fueling an unnecessary fire: Commentary on a national study of domestic abuse in Ireland. Administration; 55: 145-158.

a report, out of fear that it could negatively
impact her citizenship application.
Dr. McCarroll: You also require your students
to interview a service member, veteran ora family member. What do you have theminquire about?
Dr. Forgey: I want them to learn about thebackground and experiences of the interviewee.
Among the questions that I require are why did
he or she join the military? If the interviewee
is a non-military spouse I have the student
inquire why did the military spouse join. Why
did they join their particular military service?
I ask them to inquire about their experience
with the military including what has been positive and what has been challenging or difficult
about it. The interview also gives the student an
opportunity to apply some of what they havebeen learning in class such as being culturally
responsive and, in particular, the importance oftaking a “not knowing” stance.
Following the interview I ask them to write
about what they learned that surprised themor that changed their way of thinking. They
also describe what they learned that was supported in the class and what seemed different.
The feedback that I have received about thisassignment has been overwhelmingly positive.
They not only learn about the uniqueness ofthe particular service member’s or veteran’s
experience but they also experience the positive impact of taking a “not knowing” stanceand treating the interviewee as the expert. To
the student’s surprise, the service members
and veterans interviewed tend to be very openwith the non-veteran civilian students about
their experiences and I am convinced that this
openness has a lot to do with how the students
conducted themselves in the interview.
Dr. McCarroll: Thank you for the opportunity tolearn about your work.
Dr. Forgey: Thank you.

Reference:
Jacobs C. (2009). The response of schools ofsocial work to the return of uniformed service
members and their families. Smith College
Studies in Social Work; 79:453-463.

Forgey MA & Badger L. (2006) Patterns of intimate partner violence
among married women in the military. Journal of Family Violence;
21:, 369-380.

http://www.CSTSonline.org

Joining Forces/Joining Families • 7

Websites of Interest
There are many sources of information on the Internet
for service members, veterans and their families. It is likelythat someone who is not familiar with the military will bevery surprised at the number and variety of services andbenefits available.
■■ One option for those who want to learn about the
military programs offered on military installations
is to search the Installation Management Command(IMCOM) website at http://imcom.army.mil/hq/.
Here, one finds the basic structure of IMCOM management as well as current news items about service
members and their families. Probably most importantto readers of this newsletter, particularly non-military
readers, is the link to the MWR — Morale Welfare andRecreation. This website http://www.armymwr.com/
provides information about entertainment, recreationand installation-specific topics.
■■ Army One Source https://www.myarmyonesource.
com/default.aspx is a valuable resource for Armyfamilies. It directs the user to information on family
programs, health care, child and youth services, andmany other Army programs.
■■ Another popular resource that has been developed toallow beneficiaries to access to services outside the military environment is Military One Source. http://www.
militaryonesource.mil/MOS/f?p=MOS:HOME:0. This
program supports the service member and family in awide variety of areas including deployment, parenting,financial management, education, child care, spouse
employment, benefits, counseling, and many others.
■■ The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) also offerssome services to active duty service members, National
Guard, and Reserves as well as their family members.
This website provides astarting point for accessing possible VA services indifferent locales. Services may vary by location.
http://www.va.gov/landing2_vetsrv.htm.

Building Bridges, from page 3

References
Jekel JF, Katz DL & Elmore JG. (2001). Epidemiology, biostatis8 • Joining Forces/Joining Families

tics, and preventive medicine, 2d Edition. Philadelphia, PA:
Saunders, pp. 23-28.
MacMahon B & Trichopoulos D. (1996). Epidemiology, 2d Edition. Boston: Little Brown and Company, pp. 44-46.
Spring 2012