Protecting Youth Mental Health

“Our obligation to act is not just medical—it’s moral.”
Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A. Vice Admiral, U.S. Public Health Service, Surgeon General of the United States

To support the Surgeon General’s recent advisory related to protecting youth mental health issues exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Magellan Federal offers best practices for professionals specializing in behavioral issues to foster the wellbeing of our military families.

Magellan Federal directly supports the mental health and resiliency of military youth and families, serving over 4.5 million service members and families a year. Read more about risk factors and recommendations in our whitepaper here.

May is Military Appreciation Month and Month of the Military Caregiver

Magellan Federal honors military caregiving children through a commitment to Hidden Helpers Coalition

Military Appreciation Month is celebrated in May and is a special month for those in and out of uniform. Throughout the month we celebrate Memorial Day (May 30), Military Spouse Appreciation Day (May 6), and Armed Forces Day (May 21). But did you know that it is also Month of the Military Caregiver?

Month of the Military Caregiver

The Month of the Military honors more than five million self-identified caregivers in the United States. By observing Military Caregivers, we can raise awareness and support for both wounded warriors and the people who care for them. Many of those caregivers are children, who have largely been unrecognized and unsupported—until now.

Honoring Military Caregiving Children

There are 2.3 million children of injured, ill, and wounded service members and veterans who play a crucial role in caring for their loved ones.

Magellan Federal has joined the Elizabeth Dole Foundation’s Hidden Helpers Coalition, a group of more than 60 organizations committed to recognizing the service of military caregiving kids and enhancing support services available to them. As a Coalition member, we have pledged to engage our nation’s health care providers to create a new national model of support for caregiver children within medical institutions to ensure that the physicians, nurses, and mental health and allied health professionals better understand and address the unique challenges military children face at every stage of their development.

Through the work of targeted sub-committees, the goal of the Hidden Helpers Coalition is to create a comprehensive framework of best practices, impactful tools, and action steps focused on supporting the overall well-being and long-term positive outcomes of Hidden Helpers and their families. Through this holistic approach, the coalition will develop baseline best practices for the ecological systems that impact Hidden Helpers.

This commitment reinforces what we do here every day at Magellan Federal — supporting the behavioral health of military service members, veterans, civil servants, and their families — and is just one example of how we give back to the military community beyond our everyday work.

If you or your organization is interested in supporting military caregivers, I encourage you to stand with us to make a difference by reading more at Hiddenheros.org

Mental Health Resources for Overseas Military Children

Our nation recognizes April as the Month of the Military Child, celebrating and acknowledging the children of our service members. Through the Adolescent Support and Counseling Services (ASACS) program, overseas middle and high school youth enrolled at Department of Defense Schools have access to in-school counseling and prevention education lessons at no charge. Whether or not ASACS services are available in your area, it’s worth taking a look at the challenges military children often face, and the resources available to support their mental health.

The Challenges Military Children Face

Military children must learn to be resilient because their households may relocate every 2 to 3 years — sometimes overseas and to new cultures. For many kids, this is a difficult challenge. Middle school and high school are particularly challenging ages, where social connections, friendships, and romantic relationships become more important.

A term has been developed to describe children who spend formative years growing up outside their parents’ native culture—Third Culture Kids. Military children often represent this demographic when they relocate to other countries, which can translate into culture shock and create unique challenges that typical American teens may not experience.

In addition to being susceptible to frequent family moves, COVID-19 has impacted everyone across the globe, and our military children are no exception. They faced attending virtual schools in communities where they are already feeling isolated due to being in a new country and community. We have seen mental health concerns like depression, anxiety, and alcohol and drug use increase due to the pandemic, and many parents and students do not often seek help. But here is how they can and should.

Support Services for Overseas Youth

The key to effectively transitioning military children to their new surroundings is working with a counselor on their terms. Magellan Federal delivers the Adolescent Support and Counseling Services (ASACS) program on more than 14 locations in 6 countries. ASACS is a school and community-based program providing counseling and educational prevention-based services that are confidential for students in grades 6 -12.

Magellan Federal counselors focus on issues unique to military children such as transitioning to new environments, coping with stress and challenges associated with moves, and alcohol and drug prevention. Additionally, our counselors support these young individuals with all the other “typical” issues teens face.

As the demand for mental health services has increased, getting on a waitlist for psychological services is a real challenge for students. So often, many students are ineligible for on-base counseling due to staffing limitations, and off-base options are usually nonexistent or not adequate for English-speaking students. Through ASACS, Magellan Federal provides tailor-made, in-school counseling and prevention education lessons at no charge to overseas middle and high school youth enrolled at Department of Defense Schools. The Magellan Federal staff works with students and teachers to identify an appropriate time so that the student is staying in class as much as possible. Our team develops counseling schedules, ensuring kids receive timely, critical emotional and behavioral support while maintaining academic requirements. Because of our programming, parents do not need to leave work early and drive to accommodate a counseling session, positively impacting family engagement.

It’s important to address the unique needs of military children overseas during formative years, to proactively ease their transition and bolster confidence and resiliency. ASACS services are available to any military ID card holder student and their families. To connect with your regional ASACS counselor contact your child’s school at the front desk or the guidance department or contact Allison Welliver at WelliverAL@MagellanFederal.com to inquire about local services.

Food Insecurity Webinar Replay and Resources

Food security requires ongoing access to nutritious meals. This is fundamental to a family’s overall health and wellness. With today’s economic challenges, more families are facing financial hardships, making it difficult to access healthy meals and maintain a high level of food security. In this webinar, Magellan Federal experts will discuss the impact of food insecurity on civilian and military families, and provide practical guidance on connecting families with viable resources.

Magellan Federal experts hosted a webinar to:

Properly identify food insecurity on the hunger spectrum
Acknowledge food insecurity prevalence across civilian and military families
Discuss the stigma associated with help-seeking behavior
Distinguish casual inquiry versus formal screening of food insecurity
Q&A session

Webinar Replay

To learn more about this topic, watch the replay today! Be sure to download the additional resources:

You can also read a personal account from one of the webinar hosts in the Tackling Food Insecurity in the Military Community article.

This article was co-authored by Nikki Walker

Tips for Month of the Military Child

In April, we celebrate the children of active duty service members. Whether you work in a school, child development center, or youth center, there are many engaging activities available to highlight their unique strengths as military kids and celebrate what makes their military families special.

Here are some suggested activities for April’s Month of the Military Child:

Spirit Week: For one week in April, conduct military-themed activities each day of the week. You can plan a spirit week around Purple Up Day (April 15^th), along with additional military theme days, such as Red, White, and Blue Day, Camouflage Day, Military Hat Day, and Military Show & Tell Day.
School Morning Announcements: Ask students to participate in morning announcements by reading a military fact or a military trivia question. Provide students the fact or trivia question the day before to allow students to practice at home. To ease students’ nervousness, offer to stay with the student during the announcements as friendly support.
Arts & Crafts: Engage students in creating posters and drawings about military life or ask them to identify positive traits about military children (e.g., brave). Display artwork on bulletin boards or blank walls. Show students how to create and design paper parachutes, using coffee filters and pipe cleaners. If your site has a calendar of events, ask if you can offer an arts & crafts activity during a special event.
S. Map Bulletin Board: Find a map of the United States and post it on a bulletin board. Ask students to find where they lived prior to living in their current home. Use different colored push pins or thumbtacks to mark the cities and states. If serving children of multiple ages, select a color to represent each age group/grade level and create a map legend for each color. You can include staff who are service members themselves or are military spouses, on the map as well.
Military Board Game: Create a board game with questions that highlight various aspects of military life (e.g., deployment, moving). Use popular board games as inspiration for your game’s design (e.g., Candy Land).
Special Guests: If your site allows outside visitors, invite service member parents to come and eat lunch with their children one day in April. You could also request the installation’s military band or chorus to come and perform for the children.

If you are a part of a military community, you can see what events are planned near you by searching for events with the base Public Affairs office, Military Family Readiness Centers, Department of Defense Dependent School admin offices, and on-base Child Development Centers.

Activities may also be listed at Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) Centers at military installations overseas and stateside. The official sites for all these organizations often post calendars of upcoming events and programs.

Whether your organization is military-associated or not, it’s important to honor the sacrifices made by military families worldwide and emphasize the experience of military children serving at home and overseas.

Additional Articles on Supporting Children:

Mental Health Tips for Adults During the Ukraine War

The war in Ukraine is continually changing with updates to the minute within the news cycle and social media. Constantly, there are reports and images flooding our electronic devices with images that are incomprehensible to see. Military families have intense stress as they look at the uncertainties of deployments and the impact on military families. To add to the stress and concern, this global crisis comes on the heels of being exhausted and socially isolated by a two-year pandemic. The following are some tips to take care of your mental health during the Ukraine situation.

Limit your exposure – disconnect from electronics and social media. Although it is important to understand what is happening in the world, it is important not to immerse oneself in the event every moment. Set time limits for yourself regarding how much News or social media you watch or follow.

Recognize that people will have different reactions. People respond and react to tragedy and stress in multiple ways. Personal circumstances, such as deployment, may have different responses than those that are not experiencing deployment.

Talk about it. Do not keep your reactions inside alone. Process your feelings by talking to family, friends, and colleagues about your experience. If the feelings are overwhelming, consider talking to Mental Health Professional that can offer personalized strategies for managing your anxiety about current events.

Engage in activities that provide meaning. Participate in activities that are healthy and you enjoy. Some ideas include exercising, cooking, taking a hike, or playing with a pet.

Engage in meditation and mindfulness. Relaxation, or breathing exercises can improve your state of mind and reduce stress. Taking a few moments just to be present can shift your body’s reaction from a stress response. Try a simple breathing exercise of breathing in for a count of 6 hold for a count of 2 and breathe out for a count of 6.

COVID fatigue. Acknowledge that after a two-year pandemic and many people are tired. The Ukraine situation is especially hard to absorb. It is normal to feel overwhelmed

Avoid catastrophizing. Avoid thinking about future scenarios and what the outcome might be. Focus on one day at a time for now.

Addressing Intimate Partner Violence in the Military

The Problem

Intimate partner violence is a national public health issue, resulting in devastating personal trauma and effects on our country. Intimate partner violence includes physical violence, non-consensual sexual violence (including non-physical sexual events, such as sexting), stalking, and psychological aggression.

According to the CDC, intimate partner violence in the United States is far more common than we would want to believe, impacting approximately 25% of women and 10% of men¹.

This issue is also prevalent in the military. In 2020, there were 12,663 reports of spouse abuse and 2,026 reports of intimate partner abuse in the U.S. military. Among all military incidents, 63% of active-duty abusers were Non-Commissioned Officer Ranks (E4-E6); when accounting for only those incidents involving spouses, the highest rates of active-duty abusers were among junior enlisted ranks (E1-E3)[1].

The physical and emotional suffering of intimate partner violence victims is profound. What is also clear are the consequences for our Armed Forces. When intimate partner violence involves service members or their families — either as victims or offenders — the resulting trauma harms overall unit readiness.

Prevention Strategies

Collectively, Magellan Federal has over 30 years of experience supporting Family Assistance Programs and positions us as experts in the field. We interact with 30,500 service members and families yearly providing vital services to ease the unique stressors of military life that can aggravate or trigger patterns of abusive behavior within the family home.

Recognize the Risk Factors

Drawing upon our wealth of experience, we believe that if warning signs are recognized and addressed early, intimate partner violence instances can be significantly reduced.

The identifiable factors unique to military service that may aggravate intimate partner violence risks include:

Frequent permanent change of stations (PCS) disrupts access to natural support networks, increasing stress and social isolation. Frequent moves may also limit the ability of non-military spouses or intimate partners to find and maintain employment, increasing financial reliance on the abuser.
Frequent or unpredictable deployments and a related increase in domestic duties of the partner may contribute to a sense of instability, increasing relationship stress, or conflict[2].
Stigma of reporting abuse may lead to the belief that there may be a negative impact on the service member’s career. This may hinder the victim from seeking help for fear of retaliation by the service member and/or loss of financial support and benefits.

Key Takeaway

Ultimately, effective prevention strategies must ensure outreach and mitigation activities incorporate all categories of risk factors—individual, relational, community, and societal. The methods to battle intimate partner violence must also ensure all at-risk people (perpetrators and victims alike) receive appropriate education and aid.

We believe prevention is the best opportunity for affordable, high-impact solutions to the needs of our military.

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, November 2). Preventing intimate partner violence | violence prevention | Injury Center | CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/fastfact.html.

[2] Kamarck, Kristy N., Ott, Alan, Sacco, Lisa N. (2019, December 4). Military Families and Intimate Partner Violence: Background and Issues for Congress (Report No. R46097). Congressional Research Service. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=R46097

Tackling Food Insecurity in the Military Community

As a newlywed military spouse fourteen years ago, I was fairly overwhelmed with how much there was to learn about military culture and common military family experiences. Lost in a sea of acronyms and roads named after famous military commanders that I had never heard of, I tried to learn military lingo with the help of Google and new friends. There were also hard realities that I had much to learn about: the stress of deployment and war, the strain of combat experiences on servicemembers, families, and relationships, and shockingly: food insecurity.

Food insecurity is a challenge that I first encountered during a new spouse training on military culture and military family life experiences. At the conclusion of a military resources lesson, a fellow participant piped up, “But you didn’t talk about the food pantries. Someone in this room might want to know where they can get food if they run out.” The military spouse shared information about the local food pantries that they were personally aware of and reached out to when their own family struggled.

It was uncomfortable to hear this. As a young college student who did not yet understand the challenges that many families face in terms of financial challenges, I was taken aback. How can that be true? I remember asking myself. How can it be that families in our own military need to use a food pantry for assistance?

Shortly thereafter, I became a Registered Nurse who cared for military families and witnessed firsthand that food insecurity in the military community is a complex issue compounded by multiple factors, like spouse unemployment, economic inflation, and the everchanging landscape of family expenses needed for daily life. Military families often fall in an income bracket in which they do not qualify for some government nutrition assistance programs, like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (often referred to as food stamps.) Addressing food insecurity promptly is key: while helping families connect with resources to maintain adequate access to nutrition, the development of the even more serious concern—hunger—can be prevented.

The brave spouse who spoke up to discuss food pantries several years ago was clued into something that remains true for today’s military: food insecurity is a very real challenge that military families face, and a concern that requires a compassionate response from those whose life’s work is to support and care for service members and their families.

It is vital that all professionals who care for military families are aware of the local and military resources available to support military families in times of need. In response to the government’s request to empower Military & Family Life Counseling (MFLC) Program Counselors to address this concern at military installations all over the world, our training team developed a comprehensive food insecurities training. This training informs MFLC Counselors on the challenges of food insecurity, the prevalence of this dilemma, and how MFLC Counselors can respond when food insecurity is identified. This training utilized the survey data from the most recent 2020 Blue Star Families survey to describe food insecurity as a concern that impacts nearly 14% of today’s military families. The recorded webinar available to Magellan Federal MFLC Counselors discusses approved practices to casually inquire about food insecurity when potential warning signs are identified. MFLC Counselors are encouraged to share referral information with MFLC program participants about local and military resources to address any nutritional concerns. MFLC Counselors are experts in the resources available to the military community and play a powerful role in unlocking military families’ access to resources simply by sharing referrals to food pantries, military installation programming, and even relevant government-assistance programs, like Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

Our Magellan Federal MFLC team continues to provide prompt and comprehensive responses to the food insecurity concerns that face the military community. Embracing a compassionate, holistic approach to supporting military families is key to reducing the incidence of food insecurity, and as a result, promoting service member and family readiness to respond to mission requirements.

Military families should connect with an MFLC Counselor on their local military installation for information about available local food insecurity resources in their communities.