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The Military Child Education Coalition(MCEC), located in Harker Heights, Texas near Fort Hood, is a non-profit organization that helps parents, caregivers, and communities understand and meet the educational and emotional needs of military-connected children.

History
The MCEC was founded and incorporated in 1998 as a 501(c)(3) and currently has 150 full-time employees and a multitude of selfless-volunteers. Mary M. Keller, Ed.D., one of the founders, is the President and CEO. A former assistant superintendent for the Killeen Independent School District which encompasses Fort Hood, Dr. Keller saw a need for helping military-connected families and their children with the transition to new schools.

The MCEC’s vision and mission is to ensure military children receive quality educational opportunities though positive leadership. MCEC advocates on the part of the children to make certain they receive inclusive instruction during times of great change. The children MCEC represent are affected by parental deployments, familial separation, and continuous relocation to new regions.

The MCEC’s mission is to assist the children in receiving positive experiences during the time of transition. The MCEC’s goals are to provide responsive and relevant support systems, resources, and products, expand the MCEC’s outreach through engagement, advocacy, and partnerships, perform strategic communication plans and build a strong, sustainable, and financially sound non-profit organization which serves the United States Military and its’ children.

Organization
The MCEC has a Board of Directors that meets quarterly and consists of retired service members, educators, military-connected spouses, community leaders, and other professionals. In addition, the MCEC has a National Advisory Committee.

Parents and Students
The MCEC has designed programs to give military families resources to find the best educational opportunities for their children and to help foster communication skills within military families as they face separation and transition.

Parent to Parent

The MCEC Parent to Parent program utilizes workshops in order to encourage and empower parents to be their child’s strongest supporter on educational and social issues. Since the program’s inception in 2006, over 138,000 parents have been trained. The workshops offer ideas, techniques and recourses that support military-connected families. In all, there 24 Parent to Parent teams world-wide; with 20 teams located in the United States and 4 in Europe. The teams are composed of 3-to-6 highly-trained professionals whose sole focus is to provide workshops for families in their regions. Because the Department of the Army provides funding for the workshops, there is no cost to the parents whom attend. For more information visit, Parent to Parent.

Parent to Parent for the National Guard and Reserves

Because military-connected families are found in numerous locations, the MCEC developed other phases of the program: the Parent to Parent for the National Guard and Reserve Families, and the Parent to Parent Surge for all installations.

This phase of the MCEC Parent to Parent program provides workshops created to meet the needs of National Guard and Reserve parents across the country. Funded by the Department of Defense, the MCEC Parent to Parent Program brings top-of-the-line, informative workshops to the families of the National Guard and Reserves at NO COST to any National Guard or Reserve Unit, regardless of branch or location. National Guard or Reserve Unit Representatives can schedule these events by contacting Parent to Parent

Parent to Parent Surge

For military installations without a resident Parent to Parent team, the Department of the Army has provided funds for the MCEC Parent to Parent Surge program to provide a day’s worth of our most requested parent education workshops. These workshops are also available to non-Army Installations for a nominal fee.

The Call for the Arts

Since the MCEC began the “Call for the Arts” in 2002, thousands of military children – from all over the world, from every service, of all ages – have mailed us their drawings, poems, and interpretations of what it means to be a military child. The MCEC's Call for the Arts program is an annual contest that encourages military-connected students to express themselves artistically. The MCEC takes advantage of every opportunity to display the artistic skill of these unique, resilient children through the On The Move magazine and annual calendar. The recommended art topics are parents and family, transitions and changes, military lifestyle, learned life lessons, teachers and school, hopes and dreams, and, finally, cultural experiences.

Tell Me A Story

Tell Me A Story (TMAS) was launched on September 11, 2005. As of February 2013, the MCEC has organized 290 TMAS events with over 33,000 attendees. The mission of the program is to empower Military Children by using literature and their own stories to promote resilience, strong peer and parent connections, a sense of pride and accomplishment, and the feeling of community. Tell Me A Story is directed toward children ages 4-12. TMAS provides opportunities for parents and children to discuss difficult topics such as deployment, separation and moving. TMAS help’s give children positive, optimistic outlooks and optimistic children do better with transitions, are happier individuals, and adjust easier to constant change. The MCEC also trains parents and encourages them to help their children be strong readers. For more information on TMAS visit, Tell Me a Story

Bernard Curtis Brown II Memorial Space Camp Scholarship

The MCEC established the Bernard Curtis Brown II Memorial Space Camp Scholarship in 2001. The scholarship offers military-connected children the opportunity to have a week-long experience that combines the worlds of science, service and learning. It was created in memory of 11 year-old Bernard Curtis Brown II who died tragically on September 11, 2001, when the hijacked airliner on which he was a passenger crashed into the Pentagon. Each year since that tragic event, the Military Child Education Coalition has sent select students to Space Camp. These programs were inspired by Dr. Wernher Von Braun, a rocket scientist who played a key role in sending astronauts to the moon. In 2012, the Fluor Corporation played a major role in funding several scholarships for students to attend Space Camp. For more information visit, Bernard Curtis Brown II Memorial Space Camp Scholarship.

Frances Hesselbein Student Leadership Program

The Frances Hesselbein Student Leadership Program was established by the MCEC in 2006 to identify exceptional young people whom participate in the Student 2 Student (S2S) program. The program is named for Mrs. Frances Hesselbein, in recognition of her dedication to the development of children and youth. Mrs. Hesselbein is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute and the former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA. In 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States highest civilian honor.

The program lasts one-week and is held at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, and the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. The program consists of intensive training, interaction with positive role models, and practical applications which benefit the students in their studies and throughout their lifetimes. Full Tuition includes transportation, lodging, meals, program materials and supplies.

The programs main objectives are focused on team building, leadership development, goal setting, and motivational workshops. As well as, resilience, life span human development, character development, community involvement and leaders in action. For more information vists, Frances Hesselbein Student Leadership Program.

Student 2 Student and Junior Student 2 Student

The MCEC Student 2 Student (S2S) program trains civilian and military-connected high school students to establish and sustain peer-based programs in their schools to support mobile children as they transition to and from the school. The team is composed of advisors and students. The focus is student-centered, and is student-led, with close supervision. The development of student trainers who can return to their home campus to train other peers is critical to the success and credibility of the program. The new student receives information about the school and community while seamlessly integrating into the new campus with the help of the trained-student delegate. Building on this successful program, the MCEC Junior Student 2 Student (JS2S) program is for middle school students, addressing the needs of a vulnerable age group. For more information visit, Student 2 Student and Junior Student 2 Student.

SchoolQuest is a resource that the MCEC makes available to military-connected families for gathering and storing information about schools and post-secondary education.

Professionals
Military-connected children face the challenges that comes with frequent moves and multiple deployments of a family member. The MCEC offers training for professionals including educators and administrators, school counselors, health professionals, and community leaders to help them understand these challenges and to promote the emotional, social, and educational well-being of military-connected children and their families. Most of the professional programs count as continuing education and/or graduate credit.

The Living in the New Normal Institute(LINN) is a program designed for professionals such as school counselors, teachers, military installation officers, as well as military parents, to understand how stressful situations like transition, separation, and loss affect military-connected children and how to foster resilence among those children. The LINN program has two additional components. The LINN Practicum covers transition issues but is oriented more toward parents, Family Readiness Group leaders, and childcare providers. The LINN Public Engagement (LINN PE) is a one day session in which community leaders work to identify and coordinate existing programs that benefit military-connected children.

The Transitional Counselors Institute (TCI) has two components: TCI Phase 1 gives school counselors a foundation for understanding the transitions military-connected children face and directs counselors to resources that can help them support military-connected children during transitions. TCI Phase 2 provides training related to specific transitions such as deployment and separation and shows counselors ways to build resiliency in military-connected children. The Special Education Leadership Institute (SELI) addresses the additional challenges military families with special needs children encounter with transition.

The Supporting Children of the Guard and Reserves Institute (GRI) is a program that focuses on the unique needs of National Guard and Reserve families who have faced multiple deployments and separation but may not have a traditional military background.

The Health Professionals Institute provides resources for health professionals to support military-connected children. The MCEC also sponsors the LTG (Ret.) H.G. "Pete" Taylor Partnership of Excellence Awards to encourage partnership between school districts and military installations.