![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.gif)
Resiliency promotion programs are created with the intention of increasing participant’s ability to overcome challenges. School-aged children are an ideal developmental group to provide resiliency education. Stressors such as parental absence, frequent relocations, and inconsistent adults in children’s lives can negatively affect the ability of children to succeed in adulthood. In this comprehensive exam, resiliency promotion programs are reviewed and evaluated for efficacy.
Methods:
Declerq et al.’s six-step, population-based needs assessment, as modified by Morgan and Bibb (2011), was utilized for this comprehensive exam. PubMed and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) bibliographic databases were searched for resiliency promotion programs targeting school aged children of military members. Keywords such as resiliency program, resiliency promotion, resilience, and school-aged children of military members were used to query for results. All available articles were included without limitation of a year range. Articles were imported to the Readcube program, which assisted with snowball sampling for additional sources.
Results:
Families Overcoming Under Stress has demonstrated efficacy through thorough evidenced-based foundations, as well as secondary data analysis via psychometrically tested instruments to measure effect. Operation Purple Camp has pilot tested program evaluation, and while the internal reliability was low, it demonstrated success at increasing skills associated with resiliency. School Behavioral Health Program has yet to disseminate any efficacy research conducted despite their wide spread application in military connected schools. Child Parent Relationship Theory has been tested for efficacy in a variety of settings and with diverse populations, however the research conducted on military families had a small sample size.
Conclusion:
The most extensively tested and validated resiliency promotion program available for school aged children is FOCUS, however, it does not target the population exclusively. There remains a gap in the literature on efficacy of programs designed to increase the resiliency of school-aged children of military members prior to deployment.