Reconnecting, Renegotiating and Recovering

A workshop examining the deployment experiences of military families

With more than 4,400 of their citizen soldiers actively deployed, support from Indiana communities is needed at levels not seen since World War II. Each of these service members is part of a family with spouses, children, parents, and siblings who experience the challenges of the deployment and reunion processes along with their military member. Many members of the helping professions in our communities wish to help these families, but have had few opportunities to learn about the demands and sequelae of deployment, and state-of-the art guidelines for practice.

Workshop Overview

The Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University and the Indiana Association of Marriage and Family Therapy are pleased to offer a workshop featuring Dr. David Riggs, Director of the Department of Defense Center for Deployment Psychology. During this one-day workshop, Dr. Riggs will focus on the military culture and the stresses military families encounter during the normal course of a deployment cycle and the subsequent reunion experience.

The workshop will examine several topics related to a family’s experience during deployment. Participants can expect to learn more about:

• PTSD and its impacts on service members and their families.

• Unique aspects of working with members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families.

• The reintegration process for military members returning to civilian life.