Taking an important step in supporting military and veteran caregiving children 

After nearly two decades of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, discussions about America’s wounded, injured, or ill military service members and veterans fail to sufficiently address the well-being of the children who live with and help care for them.  

According to the first-ever study of children growing up in military and veteran caregiving homes—conducted by Mathematica in partnership with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation — about 2.3 million children under age 18 live with a veteran who has a disability. These caregiving families are strong and adaptable, and they work hard to support the individual needs of each family member in the face of caregiving demands. However, these demands also create meaningful challenges that can influence the healthy development of caregiving children and impact their lives in countless ways.  

But there is good news. The Helping Heroes Act, a new bipartisan bill from Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.), could soon mobilize a national response to benefit these children and their families. 

Our study underscored the urgency of such a national response. Among our findings: caregiving children want more help providing care for their wounded, injured, or ill military service member or veteran, and their families struggle to identify where to go for the right support. Military caregiving families fear being misunderstood by their friends, families, schools, and greater community, and often feel stigmatized and isolated. And existing barriers limit access to prompt, high-quality care, negatively affecting the entire family. 

In sum, our research shows that children in military and veteran caregiving homes need help to support their healthy development. We propose the following actions to help them overcome the challenges they face: 

1. Create and scale quality programs, including in schools, that support children from caregiving families and focus on peer support, mental health, and age-appropriate developmental opportunities.  
   
2. Fund, promote, and create new ways to support caregiving children and their families that focus on interpersonal relations and the healthy development of all family members. 
   
3. Amplify national campaigns and coalitions to collect better data that can improve understanding of the needs of injured, ill, and wounded military service members and veterans, their caregivers, and children in military caregiving homes.  
   
4. Finally, foster partnerships between federal agencies, local agencies, and private organizations to strengthen the social safety net for military children and their families. Too often, federal agencies and other national organizations provide inconsistent and fragmented supports to caregiving homes. The lack of centralized and coordinated service results in frustration, anxiety, and lost time. Federal agencies, policymakers, nonprofits, and philanthropies should collaborate and share resources to better support caregiving children, care recipients, and caregivers. Developing a centralized network to address inefficiencies and improving supports for caregiving families would make it easier for them to spend time together and to identify and navigate assistance programs.  
   

The Helping Heroes Act follows these evidence-based strategies. The bill directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to create a Family Support Program to provide and coordinate supportive services to eligible veterans and children. This includes placing an adequately staffed and resourced family coordinator at each VA medical center to build meaningful relationships with veterans and their families. The bill would also ensure that the transition assistance curriculum offered by VA includes information on services for children in veteran families adjusting from active duty to veteran status. And it would require VA to collect data on the experiences of families with a veteran with a disability to better identify and understand their needs. 

There is no single solution to the challenges facing children in caregiving homes. It will take active engagement, partnership, and collaboration among federal, philanthropic, educational, and community organizations to ensure that these children develop in healthy ways. But the Helping Heroes Actis an important and necessary step along this path. We have an obligation to help America’s heroes and their caregiving families, who require little from the nation they serve. The support that children, caregivers, and service members and veterans in military families receive ought to reflect the appreciation we have for the sacrifices they have made together.  

Cleo Jacobs Johnson and Steven Malick are senior researchers at Mathematica, a research and data analytics firm driven to improve well-being for people and communities. Rashi Romanoff is the executive vice president for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, the preeminent organization empowering, supporting, and honoring our nation’s 5.5 million military caregivers.