Session: Adapting Evidence-Based Interventions for Military Families (Society for Prevention Research 22nd Annual Meeting)

More than 2.2 million U.S. military personnel have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, resulting in more than 6,600 deaths and 48,000 injuries (IOM, 2013).  Compared to previous wars this all-voluntary military has experienced increased deployments of women, parents of young children, and Reserve and National Guard troops, and some have had longer deployments and shorter periods at home between deployments.  The sustained combat operations have been difficult for families, with each phase of the military lifecycle (including the deployment cycle) associated with a particular set of stressors.  The Military Lifecycle encompasses several stages from accession through separation from the military, and it includes the deployment cycle: Train-up / Preparation, Mobilization, Deployment, Employment, Redeployment, Post-deployment and Reconstitution (e.g., Pincus, House, Christensen & Adler, 2005, Morris, 2006).  Military operations have been described as particularly difficult for reserve and National Guard families who have less access to military support systems and fewer connections to other military systems.  A need has been identified for evidence-based universal prevention interventions that are specifically designed to meet the needs of military families and for multifaceted and multimodal evaluations that examine individual, marital and family functioning, including parent-child interactions and child functioning (IOM, 2013).  Indeed, the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense have been supporting research adapting and testing evidence-based family-based prevention interventions and operating systems for military families and this symposium will highlight three of these efforts.  The first presentation will focus on a randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of the prevention-science guided NORTH STAR framework in reducing targeted risk factors, increasing protective factors, and reducing the prevalence of family maltreatment, suicidality, and problematic alcohol and drug use on Air Force bases.  The second presentation will describe and present results of a randomized controlled trial of ADAPT (After Deployment: Adaptive Parenting Skills), a resilience-promoting program that builds skills in military families by training parents in core effective parenting skills.  The third presentation will focus on the adaptation and testing in a randomized controlled trial of the evidence-based PROSPER delivery system for National Guard and Reserve families in North Carolina.  A discussant will examine common themes and research gaps, and lead a broader discussion of next steps for family-based research within the military.