Military Deployment and its Consequences for Families

Shelley M. MacDermid Wadsworth is director of the Military Family Research Institute and the Center for Families and professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. Her research focuses on relationships between job conditions and family life, with a special focus on military families and organizational policies, programs and practices. Her research has been widely published, and has been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Henry A. Murray Center, the Department of Defense, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the state of Indiana, the Lilly Endowment, and others. She serves on the editorial boards of several major family research journals, and is a fellow of the National Council on Family Relations, and a recipient of the Work Life Legacy Award from the Families and Work Institute. She serves on the Returning Veterans Committee of the Institute of Medicine. David Riggs is a clinical psychologist and research associate professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Much of his work has focused on trauma, violence and anxiety, particularly the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders on the families of those directly affected. He has trained numerous student and mental health professionals, published more than 60 articles and book chapters, and presented more than 200 papers and workshops. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and his doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and completed a clinical psychology internship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Previous positions include clinical research and academic appointments at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, the National Center for PTSD, the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Tufts University, Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania.

• Research and Training about Military Families: Where Are We?- Evolution of a Research Agenda.- I. Relational Functioning.- Bridging the Distance: Illustrations of Real-Time Communication of Support between Partners and Deployed Members of the National Guard.- Relational Turbulence within Military Couples During Reintegration Following Deployment.- Feasibility of Telephone Support Groups for Spouses of Returning Iraq and Afghanistan Service Members.- II. Parenting and Child Outcomes.- General and Specialist Health Care Utilization in Military Children of Army Service Members Who Are Deployed.- Parenting Practices and Emotion Regulation in National Guard and Reserve Families: Early Findings from the After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools/ADAPT study.- Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Military Families: Visible But Legally Marginalized.- III. Single Service Members.- Pre-deployment Well-being among Single and Partnered National Guard Soldiers: The Role of their Parents, Social Support, and Stressors.- Towards a Better Understanding of Post-Deployment Reintegration.- Young Veterans and the Transition to Civilian Employment: Does Marital Status Matter?- Recent Developments in the Uneasy Tension Between Family and Career: Competency-Related Perceptions of Women and Mothers.- IV. Family Sequelae of Wounds and Injuries.- The Effects of Wounds of War on Family Functioning in a National Guard Sample: An Exploratory Study.- Resources and Coping Strategies Among Caregivers of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Veterans with Polytrauma and Traumatic Brain Injury.- Combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Families.- Community-Based Support and Unmet Needs Among Families of Persons with Brain Injuries: A Mixed Methods Study with the Brain Injury Association of America State Affiliates.