Program Eases Voting for Military Families
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on September 12, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Sept. 12, 2012
With Election Day just seven weeks away, federal voting officials want to ensure that service members and their families are prepared for their votes to be counted.
The Federal Voting Assistance Program has made the voting process easier than ever for Americans serving overseas, Pam Mitchell, the program’s acting director, says. The website includes a tab for each state’s deadlines for registering to vote and casting absentee ballots. It also has online registration and absentee ballot assistance, and includes a mobile app.
“We firmly believe that voting assistance for our absentee voters is absolutely the best that it’s ever been,” Mitchell said at a Sept. 5 Pentagon news briefing. “There are a lot of tools in our arsenal to help those voters both register, get an absentee ballot and to exercise their right to vote.”
If you prefer to go in person, there are 221 installation voting offices, all of which the program supports. “We’ve spent a lot of time reaching out to every single one,” Mitchell said.
The Military Postal Service Agency provides free, expedited ballot delivery and ballot tracking to your local election office for overseas-based service members and their families. Go to your local post office or postal clerk, use the Label 11 DOD form on your absentee ballot envelope and mail it. Go to www.usps.com to track the status of your ballot, according to the program’s website.
If you haven’t received your ballot by Oct. 6, use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, available on the website, as back-up. For each office for which you vote, write in either a candidate’s name or their party designation, the website says.
For additional help with the absentee voting process, contact FVAP at vote@fvap.gov or call 1-800-438-8683, DSN 425-1584 (CONUS)/312-425-1584 (OCONUS). It also is available on Facebook and you can follow on Twitter at @FVAP.
“Our goal is to make sure that anyone who wants to vote has the resources and tolls they need form anywhere in the world to successfully exercise that right,” she said.
Parents Should Stress Safety, Preparedness at 9/11 Anniversary
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on September 8, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Sept. 8, 2012
With the anniversary of 9/11 upon us, families may be considering how best to commemorate the terrorist attacks of 11 years ago.
Many installations will have remembrance ceremonies, although they likely will be on a smaller scale than for the 10-year anniversary. Regardless of whether you attend such events, how you talk to children about 9/11 is important and especially for military families, according to Dr. Stephen Cozza, associate director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
“With military families, 9/11 is an opportunity to remind children about the meaning of deployments,” Cozza said. “I think we can get a little disconnected from the mission, and having your parent away is hard. Remembering 9/11 draws us back to understanding what we’re doing [in Afghanistan]. It’s helpful and can lend certain meaning to know the military is still involved.”
And, he added, “There is certainly pride in knowing that your parent is working to prevent this from happening again.”
Discussions with children about 9/11 should be age-appropriate and based on information the child needs and is ready for, as well as the family’s personal connection to the tragedy, Cozza said. For those closely impacted by 9/11, children can benefit by memorializing the day with drawings, crafts, or poetry, or by putting up flags or visiting grave sites, he said.
Cozza suggests limiting children’s viewing of graphic 9/11 images on television and the Internet. Replays of the event can be both confusing and distressing, he said.
But as the topic comes up, it is a good chance for parents to reframe some of what children may have heard about the terrorist attacks, and “it’s a good way for them to know they can talk with their parents about tough issues,” Cozza said.
Children can become anxious from warnings about ongoing terrorist threats, so conversations should focus on safety and preparedness, Cozza said. The anniversary is a good time to explain the increased security at military bases, airports and government buildings, along with the message that such measures keep us safe.
“We don’t want to inundate kids with information that might be frightening for them,” he said. “Our job is to listen and be understanding.”
Cozza, an advisor to Sesame Street’s Let’s Get Ready program for disaster preparedness, framed a discussion with young children this way: “There was terrorist event and that is when people do bad things to hurt people without any reason. This is the time for us to remember the people who died.”
“We never want to promise kids that bad things aren’t going to happen,” but they should know that such events are rare, Cozza said.
Children can feel empowered by being prepared, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has a website especially for kids to help them prepare for all types of emergencies at www.fema.gov/kids.
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“That sense of mastery is really important to kids’ sense of emotional competence,” he said.
The website for the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress includes pages for helping children through traumatic events, as does that of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which includes talking to children about mass shootings.
Cozza said parents should resist inclinations to avoid talking about tough topics. “It’s not that we can’t talk to children about these things, it’s finding the right ways to talk to them. In post-disaster situations, we always want to balance our understanding of risk and resilience and strength.”
Spouses Hold Front Line on Detecting Depression
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on September 5, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Sept. 5, 2012
Military leaders all the way to the commander in chief are drawing attention to the importance of good mental health and putting resources into programs to help veterans, service members and their families. Read more.
But when it comes to recognizing and treating mental health problems, such as depression, spouses are the first line of defense, some treatment professionals say.
“The spouse knows the patient better than I do; they’ve been living with them for years,” Dr. James Bender, a clinical psychologist with the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, told me today. “They’re kind of at the front line of this.”
Symptoms of depression can be subtle and hard to detect, said Bender, a former Army captain and an expert on stress and post-traumatic stress disorder. “Feeling sad or having a depressed mood is only one of the symptoms of depression,” he said.
Other signs of depression include:
– Trouble concentrating;
– Changes in eating and sleeping – either too much, or barely at all;
– Anger or irritability;
– Low sex drive;
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– Social withdrawal; and
– “The hallmark symptom” of losing interest in activities he or she used to enjoy.
“He may be lying on the couch watching TV all the time and gaining weight,” Bender said.
Sometimes there is one traumatic event that triggers depression, making symptoms more sudden and easier to identify, Bender said. “But usually it’s a cumulative effect that gets a little worse day by day, and sometimes the spouse just gets used to it.”
Indeed, Bender said, “I’ve had patients who have been depressed and didn’t really know it.” Read the rest of this entry »
Teachers Look to Schools, Parents for Support
Posted by carol.bowers in Family Matters on August 27, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
When Department of Defense Education Activity Director Marilee Fitzgerald last week proclaimed teacher support a top priority, as many school systems do, I wondered how even the best intentions would trickle down to teachers thousands of miles away.
Then I spoke to Laurie Arensdorf, a first grade teacher at Vogelweh Elementary School, Germany, and I knew.
Arensdorf had just gotten home from her first day back to school – students would start a week later – when she returned my call seeking input about the new school year from a teacher’s perspective. I asked how a teacher might feel supported and how important that is.
“I’ve gotten that feeling already!” she said. “Our principal must have talked for 10 minutes today about the value of us, and how valued we are in the school.”
Vogelweh Principal Sandy Meacham “has always been like that,” Arensdorf said. But the level of support was so strong, “I had a sneaky suspicion it was also coming from higher up.”
“I really do think we are heavily supported,” she said. “In some ways, I feel like a spoiled child. I get everything I need. Especially at my school, I know I can go to the administration with anything I need and they will support me.”
Clearly, the message had gotten through that not only do principals have to have their teachers’ backs, but they have to communicate that, as well.
It was the perfect “welcome back,” Arensdorf said of the start of her second year at Vogelweh. She also taught fifth grade in Okinawa, Japan, for 13 years. “I’ve really hit the jackpot at my school,” she said.
That feeling of support, as Arensdorf explained, comes mostly from the local level – from principals and parents – but it helps to have the full weight of the school administration directing it.
“The main thing is that I feel valued, then I can take that feeling to my class and they feel happy and valued,” she said of the end result for students. Read the rest of this entry »
Sailor Transitions to Sonar After Navy
Posted by carol.bowers in Family Matters on August 23, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
When First Lady Michelle Obama and her “Joining Forces“ partners talk about service members needing transitioning into commercial work, they’re talking about people like Paul Michael Andrews.
First Lady Michelle Obama announces a major military employment milestone during a “Joining Forces” event on Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 22, 2012, reporting that more than 2,000 companies have hired 125,000 veterans and spouses through the campaign. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Ian W. Anderson
Andrews joined the military young and without a college degree. The Navy sent him to school to be a sonar technician, and he spent most of his six-year military career operating the world’s most sophisticated equipment to detect and track foreign submarines from the USS Roosevelt guided missile destroyer.
Andrews had two deployments: one to Somalia, and another to eastern Afghanistan to serve nine months working intelligence for a provincial reconstruction team.
The former petty officer knew he’d had “some awesome experiences” in the Navy, but when he decided to separate, he said, the thought of a civilian job search was filled with anxiety. Like many of his shipmates, he had never written a resume and didn’t know where to begin.
“We don’t spend time tweaking our resumes and building our professional networks,” he said. “Our network consists of the men and women we serve next to. Read the rest of this entry »
Military-Connected Girl’s Recipe Lands on White House Plates
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on August 21, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Aug. 21, 2012
Finwe Wiendenhoeft is a military-connected kid living the kind of healthy lifestyle First Lady Michelle Obama encourages through her “Let’s Move” campaign – and one endorsed by the Defense Department.
Healthy is a way of life for Finwe, 9, who lives with her family on 30 acres in southwest Wisconsin, according to her mother, Kristina, and it was their recipe for a meatless burger that earned the two seats at the first-ever “Kids’ State Dinner” at the White House yesterday.
Finwe Wiedenhoeft, 9, is shown cooking barbeque cheddar chickpea burgers, a recipe she and her mother created, which won them seats at the first Kids’ State Dinner at the White House. Courtesy photo
Finwe, the only girl and middle child in her family of seven, has always been interested in cooking, her mother said, so she helped her daughter create a recipe to enter in Let’s Move’s Healthy Lunchtime Challenge earlier this summer. Their recipe for barbeque cheddar chickpea burgers was such a hit, Finwe earned a spot among 54 children, ages 8-12, to represent her home state at the White House for the midday meal.
The fourth-grader was on a roadtrip with her parents to visit her brother, Jacob, at the Navy’s Nuclear Power Training Command, Charleston, S.C., a few days ago when I spoke with her about her win and subsequent two-day Washington, D.C., visit that included a tour of the White House Kitchen Garden and the Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian’s American History museum.
“It will be exciting,” Finwe said in anticipation. “I hope I can also see Mr. Obama and Malia and Sasha, too.”
Although they didn’t get to meet the first daughters, Finwe and her mom were seated at the first lady’s table for the East Room event, which included the full pomp and circumstance of an official state dinner and a visit from the president, according to pooled reports. The guests dined on foods created from their own recipes, which were compiled into a digital recipe book.
First Lady Michelle Obama applauds alongside her young guests at the first White House Kids’ State Dinner. The children, representing each state and territory, were selected for their healthy recipes as part of the Let’s Move Healthy Challenge. White House photo
The winning recipes were chosen among some 2,100 entries, Mrs. Obama said at the event, which was cosponsored by Epicurious. “You came up with dishes that were packed with nutritious, delicious ingredients; dishes that are good for you, but more importantly, they taste good, too.”
Kristina said the experience has motivated her daughter even more to come up with healthy recipes. “Since this happened, she constantly coming up with ideas,” she said.
Kristina, a stay-at-home mom, said she learned about the contest online and was excited because it is in line with the lifestyle she and her husband, a U.S. Forest Service employee, have engrained in their children.
“We had that kind of campaign going on in our family anyway, so we were interested,” she said. “I think it great that [the first lady] is doing this. It’s been a big focus for us. We’ve kind of built our life around it.”
The Wiedenhoefts do not have TVs – although they watch occasional movies on a DVD player – and Finwe lists her favorite activities, besides playing outside, as baking breads and cookies, drawing, and reading, especially the Harry Potter series.
The Wiedenhoefts saw their lifestyle efforts pay off when their oldest, 19-year-old Jacob, enlisted in the Navy last year and sailed through basic training. “He never had any trouble with his weight, unlike a lot of his shipmates,” said Kristina, whose father and grandfather also served in the Navy. “He didn’t struggle with running or anything.”
Finwe Wiendenhoeft hugs her brother, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob Wiendenhoeft, before heading to Washington, D.C., to take part in the first White House Kids’ State Dinner. Finwe, 9, won entrance to the event with her recipe for a healthy burger. Courtesy photo
That places Petty Officer 3rd Class Wiedenhoeft among a minority of his peers: Defense Department statistics show that only about one-fourth of Americans between the ages of 17 and 22 meet the requirements for recruitment, mostly due to obesity problems. That has sparked DOD officials to create a healthy lifestyles campaign of their own to improve recruitment and retention. Read more here.
Let’s Move “is all about all of us coming together to make sure that all of you kids and kids like you across the country have everything you need to learn and grow and lead happy, healthy lives,” Mrs. Obama said.
“It’s about parents making choices for their kids — choices that work with their families’ schedules, budgets and tastes, because there is no one-size-fits-all here,” she added.
The Wiedenhoefts have done just that, reflecting the healthy lifestyles the White House and DOD campaigns evoke.
Money App Puts Finances in Hand
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on August 17, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Aug. 16, 2012
Financial planners often talk about “being smart” with your finances – where, when and how to save, spend, and invest your money and how to manage your credit.
The ins and outs of getting and staying in good financial shape can feel like a full-time job. From buying a house to researching tax breaks to asking about lower interest rates on credit cards or auto insurance, getting smart about finances takes effort.
That endeavor can be made easier, however, with a free website and app created especially for military members by the Better Business Bureau and McGraw Hill Companies. The consumer advocacy group’s military division teamed up with the global financial information company to create militaryandmoney.com and its smartphone app, which is available for the iPhone and iPad. An Android version will be available soon, Brenda Linnington, director of the BBB Military Line, told me.
Linnington, wife of Army Gen. Mike Linnington, who commands the Military District of Washington, creates curriculum for the Military Line’s personal finance workshops, which are given at military bases around the country as part of the Defense Department and services’ financial readiness outreach. BBB’s Military Line also is a partner in the Kipplinger/BBB Financial Field Manual.
Linnington replaced Holly Petraeus last year as MilitaryLine’s director when Petraeus was appointed to head the military division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Both have worked to ease personal finance for service members and their families.
“We don’t want it be laborious kind of thing,” Linnington said of the website and app. “They can just plug in their numbers, so they have their personal financial situation in palm of their hands.”
The digital aids came about after the bureau and McGraw Hill separately pledged to help “Joining Forces,” the campaign First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Jill Biden created last year to support military families, Linnington said. The campaign fostered the partnership, merging the bureau’s military financial acumen with McGraw Hill’s global financial reach.
The web site and app provide “basic training” in personal finance with video instructions on budgeting and managing credit. They also offer an “action center” with a calculator for entering your own financial information to help with building savings — you can set a reminder for regular installments — and reducing debt.
“The great thing about the app is it’s very user-friendly, and it puts that person’s financial situation in the palm of their hands,” Linnington said “They can have it with them wherever they go.”
The website and app can help families through the financial shift of deployments and how to ease the burden when combat and hazard pay go away, she noted.
“That reunion period, as wonderful as it is, especially during the honeymoon period, also is full of a lot of stressors,” she said. “Add in the changes to your financial situation — now you have less income, your children are getting older, and becoming more expensive — that can cause more stress on an already stressful situation.”
The website and app are tailored to enlisted members at the E6 level and below, Linnington said, because that is who the bureau found needs it most. Most complaints of financial problems from service members come from the E5 and E6 level, she said. Unlike junior service members, they – most in their mid-20s – are beginning to develop credit and make enough money to pay off debt and save. And they are starting families.
“They have more money than they had before, but they also have more expenses and they’re getting into larger purchases,” she said.
Sailor Offers Tips for Moving With Pets
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on August 13, 2012
Guest blogger Navy Lt. Theresa Donnelly is the owner of Hawaii Military Pets, a volunteer online resource for military families in Hawaii. The blog and Facebook page provide information on moving with pets in the military, boarding information and pet policies in state and federal governments. She partners with nonprofits that specialize in service members and their companion animals, such as Dogs on Deployment and Pets for Patriots.
By Navy Lt. Theresa Donnelly
Aug. 13, 2012
As my military family prepares to move to San Diego next year after almost seven years of Hawaii duty, we are dealing with what many military families endure – how to find a rental that allows our big, goofy well-behaved boxer dogs.
Our society loves pets, with most Americans owning at least one. According to the American Pet Products Association, 62 percent of all households have pets, but owners struggle to find affordable and safe rental properties. The National Council on Pet Population and Research found that moving is the most common reason owners give up their dogs, and the third most common reason they give up their cats.
Navy Lt. Theresa Donnelly spends time with her 12-year-old boxer, Fiona. Donnelly helps other military families find pet-friendly housing. Courtesy photo
Some of the hardships faced by families with animals are restrictive pet policies, which occur in privatized military housing, off-base rentals and city and state governments. These policies also prevent some pet owners from obtaining insurance when purchasing a home. It’s unfortunate that irresponsible pet owners have caused property owners, rental companies and even city and state governments to adopt such policies, but there are resources to help military families overcome the challenge.
If you’re not ready to buy a home, but determined to find a rental where you can keep your pets, here are some tips to help ensure all members of the family can stay under one roof:
– Check with other military families to find out what’s worked for them. “I have two large dogs, and I started looking early, not because I want to choose a place early, but because sometimes you notice patterns in which rental management companies are more pet friendly. I’ll contact people that say, “no pets” but then offer a larger pet deposit if it’s a house I really like,” said Kristen McDeeLite, a military spouse stationed in Hawaii.
–As soon as you know the location of your next duty station, start looking online. A great resource is the Automatic Housing Referral Network. Sponsored by the Defense Department, this free service lists off-base rentals, privatized military housing, temporary lodging, military-shared rentals, and allows property owners to list their homes for rent. On the listing, there is a paw print next to each rental and information on banned breeds as well as weight, size and numeric limits.
–Contact your sponsor, the base family service center and a local animal shelter. Your sponsor may have a newcomer’s packet with housing information. Talk to families already living there and ask them for recommendations. See if local shelters have a housing pet program or other referral services.
–Call properties that state “no pets” and find out why. Perhaps you can build a rapport with the property owner and better understand their negative experiences. Maybe your family can help them overcome the negative stereotypes caused by irresponsible pet owners.
–Demonstrate to your landlord that you consider your pet a cherished, lifetime, indoor family member. Offer to bring your freshly groomed, well-behaved pet to an “interview” with the property owner and have letters of reference from previous landlords, neighbors, obedience instructors and your veterinarian attesting to the good behavior of your pet(s). Have all veterinarian records handy and offer to sign a pet addendum making you personally liable for damage to property and injury to others.
Moving rarely is a smooth, stress-free process. But preparing early, putting aside savings and planning smartly will help alleviate some of the hassle and help ensure your furry family member arrives at your next duty station happy and healthy.
Heroes Program Helps Families Travel
Posted by ldaniel in Family Matters on August 9, 2012
By Lisa Daniel
Aug. 9, 2012
Families of wounded warriors already are benefitting from a program that started last month to make it easier for them to travel with their loved ones for medical treatment.
The Defense Department and Fisher House Foundation have teamed up to oversee the Hotels for Heroes program, which allows the American public to donate their unused hotel reward points to families of wounded warriors so that they might stay for free in hotels around the country while their family member receives medical treatment.
“The family members of our wounded heroes should never have to stress about the financial burden of travel,” David Coker, president of the Fisher House Foundation, said at a July 16 ceremony. “We are honored to help facilitate the process and are confident that the American public will help make this new program a success.”
Cindy Campbell, the foundation’s vice president for community relations and media affairs, said Aug. 7 that the program already has provided 60 nights of lodging for military families.
“We’re very fortunate in that many of the hotel chains banked a lot of points for us,” she said. “That has allowed us to go ahead and get started. And a lot of people already have donated points, but we are going to go through these quickly.”
Sadly, Campbell said, “there is a huge demand” from families who must travel to locations without one of the 57 Fisher Houses, or where they are full. The houses near large military medical centers fill up quickly.
The program’s sponsors are optimistic, given the success of its sister program, Hero Miles, that has allowed them to give away more than 30,000 plane tickets since it was created in 2003, Campbell said.
The annual need for hotel rooms “is a very substantial six-figure number,” she said, “so this is really going to help us out.”
Pictured here at the launch ceremony: (left to right): David Coker, Fisher House Foundation president; U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin; Jessica Allen and her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Chaz Allen and their daughters, Ryann and Deryn Allen; U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger; Mark Nicpon of AmericInn; Debbie Marriott Harrison of Marriott.; Joseph McInerney of the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Courtesy photo
Jessica Allen, whose husband, Army Staff Sgt. Charles Allen, is recovering from a roadside bomb, used Hero Miles to fly herself and her two daughters back and forth to her husband’s hospital bed during his recovery and rehabilitation.
“Hero Miles saved our family from a crushing expense – and gave our daughters the chance to be with their dad when he was in the hospital and learning to walk again,” Allen said at the program’s launch ceremony. “Hotels for Heroes will do something similar, and I am thankful to all the people who have and will donate their unused hotel points to benefit our military families.”
Six major hotel companies – Marriott, Wyndham, Best Western, Starwood, AmericInn and Choice Privileges Hotels – are participating in the program.
The program fills a void, Campbell said, in allowing the American public to give back. “It’s a very simple way for business travelers while they are racking up so many hotel points, to give back,” she said.
People can donate points by going to their hotel rewards club website, which has a tab for Fisher House donations.
Fisher House Foundation is best known for the network of comfort homes built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. The Fisher Houses are donated to the military and Department of Veterans Affairs, and families can stay in the houses while a loved one is receiving treatment. Additionally, the foundation ensures that families of service men and women wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan are not burdened with unnecessary expense during a time of crisis.