More than 1.6 million children in the United States have at least 1 parent in the military, including at least 600,000 children under age 6, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). While parenting under any circumstances can be challenging, military families often face scenarios that can make it harder to parent effectively. The programs profiled in this brief can inform both the development of military-specific home visiting models and the practices of broader programs seeking to reach military families. This includes approaches grounded in an understanding of trauma and drawing on the unique experiences of military life. Leveraging technology can also help programs reach more military families, who tend to be geographically dispersed and increasingly live off military bases.

This brief was developed for the National Home Visiting Resource Center and is available on its website. The NHVRC is led by James Bell Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute. Support is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.