Formerly called Big White Wall, it is an online mental health platform tool that offers anonymous and immediate peer support to serving personnel, veterans, and families.
It has helped approximately 14,000 members of the military community since it was set up more than nine years ago.
Visit togetherall.com.
Royal Navy families can now access mental health support online.
The Naval Families Federation has launched a 12-month pilot scheme to provide free access to the Headspace app for families of regular and reserve RN personnel.
Working with support from Navy Command and the Royal Navy Family and People Support organisation, 3,000 licences have been bought.
To access the offer, the family member should visit www.nff.org.uk/headspace where they will be guided through the verification process.
Research Paper Title
“This is not your Life…and it becomes your Life”: A Qualitative Exploration of Deployment-related Stress and Support needs in National Guard and Reserve spouses who are Mothers of Young Children.
Background
The adverse effects of deployment-related stress (DRS) on military service members, spouses, and children are well documented.
Findings from a recent Consensus Report on Military Families by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (2019) underscore the priority of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the diversity of today’s military families and their needs and well-being.
While social support is generally regarded as helpful during times of stress, it has not been studied extensively in National Guard/Reserve spouses who are parents of young children.
Methods
This qualitative study of 30 women examines the unique ways in which DRS affects women who are National Guard/Reserve spouses and mothers of young children, as well as the processes through which they encountered support to manage these stressors.
Salient themes spanned experiences involving deployment cycle phases of separation and reintegration and included both anticipated and unanticipated changes in family-related division of labour, dynamics, and communication patterns.
These were complicated by geographic, social, and cultural isolation and misguided efforts to support spouses initiated by civilians.
Conclusions
Women managed these stressors primarily through seeking, acquiring, and repurposing existing sources of informal social support for themselves and formal supports for their children, with varying degrees of success.
Reference
Ross, A.M., DeVoe, E.R., Steketee, G., Spencer, R. & Richter, M. (2020) “This is not your Life…and it becomes your Life”: A Qualitative Exploration of Deployment-related Stress and Support needs in National Guard and Reserve spouses who are Mothers of Young Children. Family Process. doi: 10.1111/famp.12622. Online ahead of print.
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