Abstract
Families of Australian Defence Force (ADF) members also contribute to the defence of our nation. Through maintaining family functioning at home, they enable the ADF member to focus on their operational duties confident that the family members at home are proceeding with day to day lives. Schools play an important role in supporting ADF families by providing the necessary emotional support to enable students to maintain academic engagement and progress. The Defence School Transition Aide (DSTA) program assists school to fulfil this role. Through the provision of proactive and responsive support services for students, teachers and parents and the sharing of a contextual understanding of the ADF lifestyle, Defence School Transition Aides (DSTAs) add to the whole school contribution to supporting the ADF.
Highlights
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) lifestyle offers many opportunities and presents many challenges for school aged children
The implementation of the Defence School Transition Aide (DSTA) program acknowledges the contribution that the families of ADF members make in defence of our nation
The Department of Defence demands a lot from its members during military operations and this can take its toll on all family members
Summary
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) lifestyle offers many opportunities and presents many challenges for school aged children. They felt they carried many of these extra responsibilities on their own with little understanding or support from the school community They reported heightened levels of family stress and conflict resulting after the deployed parent’s return from deployment. Focus groups of teachers and school support staff (Mmari et al, 2009) reported that school staff felt challenged and often overwhelmed with challenging student behaviour during a parental deployment or during the weeks following the parent’s return (Mmari et al, 2009) They felt that while there had been some initial attempts from school administrators to provide additional support to students during the early years of America’s engagement in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, the situation had become normalized and the students involved no longer received the required attention. Unlike ADF spouses who increased resilience with each successive deployment, children’s resilience to deployment declined from the second deployment onwards
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