Military Family Needs Assessment: Final Report 2010 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University OSD Military Community & Family Policy USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture
getting so much info out and on such a more global level...I think that's awesome."
B. INFORMAL SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT Key Areas: 1. Family. Participants stated that they found out about the programs and services that were available through family members (usually this was because their family member was also a service member, was formerly a service member, or worked for a program on base). Participants talked about utilizing their family as a network for support while their spouse was deployed. Participants stated that knowing a family member had experienced a similar situation and accessed a particular resource, made the participant more likely to utilize the same resources. "So I don‟t want that guy, I want the guy that my father trusts or that my mother trusts or that my best friend, who went through the same exact military situation that I did, who he went to. And he had an experience. You know what I mean?...That‟s the guy I want." 2. Friends and Neighbors. Participants specifically talked about receiving information about programs and services, as well general information about the military from friends. Participants talked about receiving support from friends and neighbors, especially during their spouse‟s deployment. "...if my wife or anything needed any help, they‟re [friends at work] always come over...and if something broke one of the guys would come over and fix it or something…I had one neighbor that was an ex-Marine, and he stayed over, and he would cut the yard, even when I was gone this last time. Him and his wife would come over and check on my wife and cut the yard or whatever needed help." "...it was a really tough deployment. That's all I can say... It was very tough. If it wasn't for friends and neighbors, it would have been a lot worse." "... I have a certain few select people that I would go to, to ask or that I would go to open up with, 'I have this problem and this is a real problem,' who can I go to, to talk about that?" "I think a lot of them find that it's just too much work to go and look up where they can just get it word-by-mouth whenever they need the resources. You're on the computer, you know, simply type in for a lot of them it's too much process to go through and if I need something, I can just ask someone, my neighbor or my friend, and they can tell me. That's what we found having
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