The Military Family — A Practice Guide for Human Service Providers

Today, there are more military family members than there are total uniformed service members. Sixty percent of the military are married, including more than eighty percent of all career-status personnel, and many have small children. They come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and they represent a wide variety of family types, including single parents, dual career military couples, and families with eldercare responsibilities. In an effort to cut costs, many of the services utilized by military families are being privatized or outsourced to civilian service providers. This guide is designed to benefit anyone who provides services to these families, particularly those who may have little or no prior knowledge of the unique nature of military families and military family life.

JAMES A. MARTIN is Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr College's Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research.LEORA N. ROSEN is a social science analyst with the National Institute of Justice in the Office of Research and Evaluation.LINETTE R. SPARACINO is a developmental editor working on the Textbook of Military Medicine, an encyclopedic series on military-specific medicine produced by the Borden Institute, a special project of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army.