Abstract
Background to this report
The British Army will be bringing 4,000 service personnel and their families to Wiltshire, which will transform Salisbury Plain into the Army’s largest training area in the UK with three high readiness Reaction Force Brigades based in Wiltshire by 2019. The British Army’s basing announcement in March 2013 (MOD 2013) advised approximately 4,300 extra troops would be moving to Wiltshire over the next four years, accompanied by their families, bringing the total number of additional people to 7,600. The significant increase in Army personnel and their families to South Wiltshire will have implications for a range of Wiltshire Council partner organisations, which will need to consider what additional services may be required to meet increased demands of service personnel and their families (MOD 2016).
Military families are resilient, but an increasing body of literature has documented the psychosocial toll of a parent’s deployment (Gerwitz et al 2014). Military operations are characterised by extended, multiple, and frequent deployments and many active duty service personnel with children have served on more than one deployment (Bello et al 2015). A large proportion of the current knowledge has been around reintegration experiences, which is based on clinical work with service men and women who have experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the impact this has on their lives (Marek et al 2012). However, this does not address the breadth of needs of families returning to the United Kingdom from often long deployments abroad for themselves, their partners and their children.
Purpose
To establish the potential needs of returning families so that the information can be used to ease the transition for armed forces families with young children, to access appropriate help in the immediate and long term, to integrate into local communities.
The British Army will be bringing 4,000 service personnel and their families to Wiltshire, which will transform Salisbury Plain into the Army’s largest training area in the UK with three high readiness Reaction Force Brigades based in Wiltshire by 2019. The British Army’s basing announcement in March 2013 (MOD 2013) advised approximately 4,300 extra troops would be moving to Wiltshire over the next four years, accompanied by their families, bringing the total number of additional people to 7,600. The significant increase in Army personnel and their families to South Wiltshire will have implications for a range of Wiltshire Council partner organisations, which will need to consider what additional services may be required to meet increased demands of service personnel and their families (MOD 2016).
Military families are resilient, but an increasing body of literature has documented the psychosocial toll of a parent’s deployment (Gerwitz et al 2014). Military operations are characterised by extended, multiple, and frequent deployments and many active duty service personnel with children have served on more than one deployment (Bello et al 2015). A large proportion of the current knowledge has been around reintegration experiences, which is based on clinical work with service men and women who have experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the impact this has on their lives (Marek et al 2012). However, this does not address the breadth of needs of families returning to the United Kingdom from often long deployments abroad for themselves, their partners and their children.
Purpose
To establish the potential needs of returning families so that the information can be used to ease the transition for armed forces families with young children, to access appropriate help in the immediate and long term, to integrate into local communities.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | University of South Wales |
| Commissioning body | Home Start |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-909838-37-6 |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |