Gathering voices and experiences of Australian military families: Developing family support resources

Abstract: Introduction: Young children from Australian Defence Force (ADF) families have experiences common to other military and Veteran families from other countries. Despite this, these families have unique cultural and contextual elements that need to be explored. Globally, research about how young children experience and understand parental deployment was collected from parents through proxy. A doctoral research study sought to privilege 2-to-5-year-old children’s voices to ascertain what it was like to live in an ADF family. Subsequently, the project created age-appropriate and culturally appropriate resources to support these children in dealing with the stresses of military family life. Methods: Mosaic and narrative research approaches were employed to co-construct data and listen to 19 young children’s voices. The study also listened to their parents and early childhood educators’ voices as significant secondary sources of knowledge. Data collection tools included creative activities. Thematic analysis was employed. Results: Findings identified a dearth of age- and culturally appropriate resources to build children’s abilities to make sense of their experiences. Children struggled with the ongoing nature of family transitions, often caused by parental deployment, training, and frequent family mobility. Additionally, children were subjected to various risk and protective factors. Discussion: Children’s responses to parental absences, family mobility, and exposure to risk and protective factors aligned with international literature. The resource gap was partially addressed by co-creating free online research-based resources. These will be of interest to other family researchers and those who support children from military and Veteran families.