New Family Program Updates

The Association of the U.S. Army Director of Family Programs recently distributed an update on their family activities.

Here are a few items that you might find helpful:

1.       Blue Star Families 2013 Lifestyle Survey on what military families say is most important to them: http://bluestarfam.s3.amazonaws.com/42/6b/b/1583/OnePager2013.pdf

2.      Upcoming locations of Hiring our Heroes Job Fairs: http://www.uschamber.com/hiringourheroes/events  Note: there are three pages that run all the way through March of 2014 so don’t forget to scroll through all of them

3.      Military Family Research Institute provided the newest information on what research is showing us about military children:  See http://blog.militaryfamily.org/2013/06/26/how-are-military-families-doing-what-researchers-are-discovering/

4.      AUSA is launching a Spouse membership initiative.   It is scheduled for a soft launch in late September/ early October! How will it work?

a.      Spouses will click on to a spouse membership link that will take them to a page explaining the new membership category

b.      Spouses will be asked if their spouse is currently an AUSA member

i.      If “yes”, spouse will type in their spouses email for verification and then will be taken to a page that allows them to join at the $14.oo rate (sans magazine)

ii.      If “no” spouses will be able to join at the rate equivalent to their husbands rank or DA civilian position

c.       FIRST 100 spouses to receive FREE Ann Hand AUSA membership pin (see photo)

5.   The AUSA Family Programs Directorate represented the association in the following meetings since the last Update (Links to the events have been included:

a.      OSD-Military Family Research Institute Launch of “How to Help Military & Veteran Families” materials: (FREE for download: https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/publications/how-to-help.aspx )

b.      “Celebration of Our Military Kids’ Star Power” http://www.ourmilitarykids.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Star-Power-Press-Release-2013.pdf

c.       Military Family Readiness Council (NMFA is a sitting council member- their report here: http://www.militaryfamily.org/feature-articles/military-family-readiness.html )

d.      Presented at AWAG in Germany: http://www.awagonline.org/Seminar-Speakers.html

e.      Blue Star Families Lifestyle Survey launch

f.       Exhibited at TAPS National Military Survivor Seminarhttp://www.taps.org/

g.      United through Reading Senior Spouse Roundtable: http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/

h.     Military Families Research Institute Symposium: https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/newsroom/view-news.aspx?newsitemid=95

i.      National Child Traumatic Stress Network Advisory Council Meeting (I represent not only AUSA but I am the military family rep) http://www.nctsn.org/