User:Sydneyd75/Family resilience

In military families
Recent literature has focused on identifying healthy coping and adaptation in military families. With the current wars across the world, more military members are being deployed and are struggling with various issues such as: mental illness, substance abuse, difficulty with transitions, changes in roles, and ensuring their family is safe and healthy. The families of these military members are not immune to these stressors. The stress associated with the military can lead to depression if adequate coping mechanisms are not employed, or if the family does not possess the needed support or strength to adapt to stressors.

The Department of Defense has collaborated with positive psychology scientists to create the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program for members of the Army. More recently, the Family Skills Component of this program has been released for use by family members in the military. New military, government, and public health initiatives are focused on fostering and promoting resilience in the military family overall. Initial results from pilot studies show that those who are resilient can better cope with stressors and are less likely to suffer from depression or alcohol use.

The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program in the U.S. Army is the first of its kind. With input from the positive psychology field, a program to increase the physical and psychological health of service members was implemented in 2009. The Family Skills Component of this program is meant to assist military spouses and family members to also increase their levels of resilience.

MY EDIT: Additionally to this program, there is also a project called Families OverComing Under Stress (FOCUS). This project was created by a University of California, Los Angeles-Harvard intervention development team at a Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton. The program was created as a large-scale demonstration program for the US Marine Corps and US Navy. Essentially FOCUS was created to supply education and skills training designed to aid with coping and deployment-related experiences for military parents and children. Within this program family members of those in the military build a support network with each other by communicating each of their deployment-related experiences. This understanding is from each other aids in supporting the family resiliency processes. Results report an improved understanding of deployment and combat stress, improved family skills like communication, emotional regulation, family goal setting, and stress management. A 2012 American Journal of Public Health study of 331 families who participated in the original military FOCUS program shows it significantly improves children's behavior and family functioning and reduces anxiety and depression among all family members

Family resilience prevention and intervention
Professionals who work with families may employ a variety of educational, therapeutic, or community-based approaches to helping protect families against adversity or facilitate the abilities of families to mobilize their strengths or gain new resources to successfully rebound from adversity (i.e., demonstrate resilience). Examples of such approaches are to inoculate against risk (or expose families to low levels of risk in preparation for potential greater risks), reducing risk, increasing resources, or changing meanings to make them more manageable, according to Henry et a. (2015).

MY EDIT: Disability within a family critically affects each family members life. People with disabilities may encounter societal, medical, environmental, physical, and attitudinal barriers. These barriers can have the ability to put these individuals and their families in the face of adversity. Family functioning is also key in identifying basic elements in resilience, including such processes as cohesion, flexibility, open communication, problem-solving, and an affirming belief system. In addition, in order for families to frame the stress and uncertainty of having a child with a disability as a challenge that provides opportunities for finding resilience and meaning finding the right resources and professionals is essential. When a family who is facing adversity is surrounded by a community who lack in responding to hardships they are bound to family disruption. This proves that as family adversities become more challenging and difficult, the availability of community resources and a family's outreach to use them are essential. This may include resources like providing financial security, practical assistance, social support, a basic sense of connectedness through kin and friendship networks, and religious or other group affiliations.