BCTR briefs Army Reserve Family Programs’ leadership

February 22, 2013

Brian Leidy and Marney Thomas

The quarterly meeting of the Army Reserve Family Programs leadership was held in Raleigh, NC the week of January 28 to February 1, 2013. Attending along with Army Reserve Headquarters staff and center directors and coordinators throughout the United States were representatives from the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) Military Projects. Dr. Brian Leidy and Dr. Marney Thomas provided an overview of the Cornell plan to partner with Army Reserve Family Programs staff to evaluate the efficacy of their family outreach programs. This work is funded by a grant through United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Army Reserve. The two-year project beginning April 1st will involve staff from the BCTR and the Cornell Office for Research on Evaluation (CORE). The Army Reserve-Cornell partnership will develop performance metrics and measures of effectiveness for the family support programs that the Army Reserve provides for all reserve soldiers and their families. In addition, the partnership will develop a standardized needs assessment to gather community input on the needs of reserve soldiers and family members who are geographically dispersed, usually living many miles from the nearest military installation. This needs assessment data will be used by the Army Reserve to prepare for a forthcoming accreditation process that each Family Programs Center will undergo on a tri-annual basis.

This project is an expansion of the work that the Military Projects have been doing for over ten years with the Active Duty Army family programs, and project staff are looking forward to bringing applied research methodology to the Army Reserve and entering into a second collaboration with CORE. Currently BCTR and CORE are partnering through another USDA NIFA-Department of Defense (DoD) grant with the DoD Office of Community Support for Families with Special Needs to develop process and outcome metrics for the Exceptional Family Member Programs across all four Services. Other projects include outcome evaluation with the Army Family Advocacy Program, and Army Community Services Program, and assisting the Air Force Family Advocacy Program in developing public awareness campaign materials for their Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month, Domestic Violence Prevention Month, and Dating Violence Prevention Month.