Location:
Missouri - Statewide

Objectives:

• Missourian residents will learn about military-specific parenting issues.

• Military families and community providers will have access to military-specific and general parenting information

• Statewide partners will build a sustainable, replicable model to provide military-specific parenting information through Healthy Parenting Tool Kits.

• Cross-sector community groups will develop and implement plans to provide military-specific and general parenting information to military-impacted families.

Summary:
Since the late 1980's, our military families have been asked to endure much as their loved ones have been deployed to distant locations both in the United States and around the world. Current separations for military families are lasting anywhere from 12 to 18 months. The last year has been even more difficult with the media focusing on rising death tolls and hostile acts towards our service members overseas.

Lincoln University Cooperative Extension through the Human Resource Development State Specialist, received grant funding from the United Stated Department of Agriculture to provide educational opportunities and training to service providers, community liaisons, and representatives from school systems who work with National Guard families. The focal piece of the training is the Healthy Parenting Tool Kit, which was developed by Lincoln University and the University of Missouri through a grant from the Department of Defense. Health Parenting Tool kit is a compilation of over 500 tools that can be used by people parenting children ages 3-10. Materials focus on parenting children in times of crisis, when parents are involved in dangerous work, when families must relocate, and when a parent(s) are deployed. The Healthy Parenting Tool Kit is based on an ecological model. Designed to foster communities’ (schools, faith-based, businesses, civic organizations, etc.) nurturance of military families, it capitalizes on the “Teachable Moment”.

Although, materials were developed to meet the needs of military families they have general applicability to any parent(s) finding themselves involved in any of the topic areas. The intent of the trainings is to build the capacity of communities in the state of Missouri to respond to the needs of parents with deployed children.

Anticipated Impact:

• Missourians will learn about military-specific parenting issues.

• Statewide partners will build a sustainable, replicable model to provide military-specific parenting information through Healthy Parenting Tool Kits.

• Build Missouri’s local communities’ capacity to respond to military families.

• Cross-sector community groups will develop and implement plans to provide military-specific and general parenting information to military-impacted families.

For More Information, Contact:

Yvonne Matthews, State Specialist, Human Development
Lincoln University Cooperative Extension
106 Allen Hall
Jefferson City, MO  65102-0029

Phone: (573) 681-5536

E-mail: matthewy@lincolnu.edu