Healthy Parenting Initiative for Military Parents

July 16, 2007

What is the Healthy Parenting Initiative?
The Healthy Parenting Initiative represents a collaborative effort between DoD and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service to create a number of military specific resources for both parents and professionals working with military parents and their children.

The wide variety of resources available through this initiative were developed in response to needs identified by parents, family support programs staff and Commanders and include:

• Step Into Your Children's World, a developmentally oriented parenting tool kit that is designed to take advantage of "teachable moments" and to inform parents about topics related to parenting in the context of deployment, relocation, and dangerous work, as well as general parenting information.

• Stay Connected, resources to improve parent-teen communication

• Command Briefing Resources

Healthy Parenting Initiative resources are available at every installation through the Family Advocacy program, Family Center, Chaplain, Pediatric/Family Practice Clinic or Child Development/Youth Program; through State National Guard and Reserve coordinators, and through Military OneSource.

The above noted materials are all easily accessible through the left hand navigation bar entitled "In this section". Also available to service providers are links to a Guide for Professionals with tips on how you can use these materials to work with military families on your installation.

Please be aware that some of the links on these pages will take you to the Troops & Families section of MilitaryHOMEFRONT. You can track your location by observing the highlighted tab at the top of the page.

The Guide for Professionals is available in PDF format suitable for download and printing.