The MFRC is often contacted by military families themselves, although this is not our mission. As a courtesy to the military families who often use our site or contact us with questions, we are providing this page of FAQ and resources to assist you. The best place for you to find answers to your quality of life questions is the Family Center on your installation or the installation located closest to where you live. The program directories section below will assist you in locating contact information.

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Program Directories
• MFRC Family Program Sites
• Publications
• Additional Resources
• Related Links

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

We encourage you to contact the staff of professionals at the local Family Center for all your family support needs. However, in an effort to assist military families, we have compiled the following list of Frequently Asked Questions and Answers.

Program Directories

The MFRC maintains program directories that contain contact information for Family Centers, Child Development Centers, Youth Programs, and Family Advocacy Programs on all military installations. You can now search the directories and generate custom reports.

MFRC Family Program Sites

Military Children and Youth
This Web site provides a wide variety of resources revolving around military child and youth programs. The site contains information about legislation, policies and service specific regulations developed to provide guidance for program operations. Also available are searchable databases, military points of contact for child and youth programs worldwide and a list of joint initiatives and civilian/military partnerships. This site incorporates the National Clearinghouse for the Military Child Development Program. The objective behind the Clearinghouse was the creation of a mechanism to share the lessons learned from Military Child Development Programs with the rest of the nation to improve the quality of all child care in the United States. While this remains the central mission, the focus of the Clearinghouse has been expanded to include information on military youth programs.

Celebrating Military Families
The site provides an opportunity to share special event plans for Military Family Week in November and Spouse Appreciation Day the Friday before Mother's Day each May. The Web site provides ideas and suggestions of how communities can thank military spouses for the support they give to their family and other military families throughout the year. Both sites contain information and resources to assist program managers in designing and sharing celebrations that honor the contributions and sacrifices of military families that often include frequent deployments, family separations and frequent moves.

Enduring Freedom
The Enduring Freedom site was designed as a resource to assist the professionals who are providing support to service members and their families during the current military operations. The site contains resources to address mobilization and deployment issues. The resources are organized for our target populations of service members, families and employers. The site also provides organizations and tool kits to aide military parents, military program managers and other child advocates who are supporting children and their families to restore and maintain mental well-being after traumatic events, separations and deployments.

Domestic Violence
The Domestic Violence Prevention site was developed to identify initiatives that promote the prevention of domestic violence. Every year in October, Domestic Violence Prevention Month activities are planned throughout the nation, including the Family Advocacy Programs (FAP) in the military. Our goal on this site is to provide a vehicle to share prevention information and ideas to program managers as they work to prevent domestic violence in the military community.

Child Abuse Prevention
The Child Abuse Prevention site provides a wealth of materials to promote prevention through the development of programs and partnerships, identifying safety issues and responses to frequently asked questions to help in the fight against child abuse. Every year in April, Child Abuse Prevention Month activities are planned throughout the nation, including the Family Advocacy Programs (FAP) in the military and they are highlighted on this site.

EFM Connections
Provides Department of Defense (DoD) families with special medical and/or educational needs, access to information, resources and each other. The site empowers families, and the professionals who work with them, with information that will help them decide on issues of importance to an individual family's special needs.

Social Compact
This site was developed as a tool to promote the new Social Compact with the military, which is the long-term quality of life strategy for the Department of Defense. The new Social Compact reconfirms America's commitment to service members, both active and reserve, implements the President's directive to review measures for improving quality of life for military personnel, and provides recommendations for implementation. The new Social Compact is DoD's philosophical statement of the government's responsibility to underwrite military family support programs. The site contains the report and a database that identifies regulatory requirements in the areas of health care, housing, off-duty education, military child education, child care, recreation and fitness, personal financial stability, military spouse education and employment, and strengthening support to the reserve forces and employer support programs.

Publications

Factsheets

• New Parent Support
     PDF - 174 kb   Word - 35.0 kb (text only version)
  Describes the implementation and evaluation of the Department of Defense New Parent Support Program (NPS) in each military Service.
  
  
• Military Families in the Millennium
     PDF - 227 kb   Word - 31.0 kb (text only version)
  Provides information on the demographic trends on military families and describes the direction of family support efforts in the millennium.
  
  
• Guard and Reserve Family Readiness for the
  21st Century
     PDF - 229 kb   Word - 35.0 kb (text only version)
  Identifies the objectives of DoD's Reserve Family Readiness Initiative and outlines the joint efforts that can enhance Guard and Reserve readiness.
  
  
• Dept. of Defense: Supporting
  Military Youth
     PDF - 151 kb   Word - 27.0 kb (text only version)
  Identifies the objectives of DoD's Strategic Youth Action Plan and provides demographic statistics on military youth.
  
  
• Shaken Baby Syndrome
     PDF - 104 kb   Word - 30.5 kb (text only version)
  The Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) fact sheet presents basic information about SBS and efforts to prevent it. Some of the issues addressed in the fact sheet include a brief description of SBS, contributing factors, consequences, and prevention efforts.

Additional Resources

Related Links

This section will provide information on related links that will give you access to additional program areas, family support agencies, DoD and Service branches, research and policy organizations.

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Last updated date: July 27, 2004 by webmaster@mfrc-dodqol.org.