ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the challenges and strengths associated with being a military family or a family impacted by military service during the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). It explains a case vignette to illustrate some of the significant issues, and is followed by suggestions for human service providers intervening with military-connected families across all areas of helping including clinical work, programmatic/policy development, and applied research. In the case of a military family and for service members with children, there are additional stressors that impact their physical, emotional, cognitive, and social health. Military service members who had multiple deployments had a greater risk of being diagnosed with a mental health disorder such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Within military-connected populations, intimate partner violence (IPV) is seen as an even more significant problem because of unique factors and stresses of military life.
