Pediatricians warned children of military personnel face mental health risks

By Ryan Jaslow
CBS News
Originally posted May 27, 2012

Children of military personnel may be at an increased risk for social, emotional and behavioral problems, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Published May 27, Memorial Day, in the academy's journal Pediatrics, the new clinical report aims to raise awareness among pediatricians for the mental health needs for military children.

Authored by Dr. Ben S. Siegel and Dr. Beth Ellen Davis, who serve as members on the Committee On Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health and Section on Uniformed Services, the report points out about 60 percent of U.S. service members have families while about 2.3 million military members have been deployed since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq about a decade ago.

The entire article is here.

War Tragedies Strike Families Twice

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published on December 20, 2012

One night in March 2008, William and Christine Koch opened their front door to see two soldiers in green dress uniforms bearing news that their son, Army Cpl. Steven Koch, had been killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.

Two years later, Mr. and Mrs. Koch opened the door to see two police officers in blue. This time, they learned their daughter, Lynne, brokenhearted over her brother's death, had killed herself with an overdose of prescription drugs.

She is a casualty of this war, and I don't care what anybody says," Mrs. Koch said. "If my son was not killed, my daughter would be here."

The military tracks suicides among the troops. The Department of Veterans Affairs studies self-inflicted deaths among people who have left the service. Nobody collects data on suicides among the parents, siblings and spouses of the more than 6,500 Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But anecdotal evidence from military families, support groups and suicide survivors suggests that over the past 11 years of war, the U.S. has experienced a little-recognized suicide outbreak among the bereaved. This second round of tragedy often takes place years after a loved one's death, when the finality of the loss becomes inescapable.

"We've all had the idea of suicide at one time or another," said Nadia McCaffrey of Tracy, Calif., whose son Patrick died in an ambush in Iraq in 2004. She said she personally knows a half dozen military parents who have killed themselves.

To learn more about war grief, researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a federal institution in Bethesda, Md., are recruiting 3,000 people to participate in a first-ever U.S. study of bereavement among families of those killed on active duty.

"We don't know whether or in what ways military-service deaths—combat-related, accidents or suicides—differ from similarly sudden or violent civilian deaths in their impact on bereaved family members," said Stephen Cozza, a psychiatrist involved in the research.

The violent and faraway nature of combat death—often following months of dread—may make it harder to accept for those left behind, said Bonnie Carroll. She founded the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, after her husband, an Army general, died in a 1992 plane crash.

"To have someone come to the house and deliver this devastating information that you'd never see them again is impossible to absorb," Mrs. Carroll said. In her grief after her husband's death, she found herself taking high-speed, late-night drives along the Alaska coast, as if daring herself to join him.

The entire story is here.

Parity for Patriots: The mental health needs or military personnel, veterans and their families

The National Alliance on Mental Illness released a report entitled Parity for Patriots: The Mental Health Needs of Military Personnel, Veterans and their Families.  Here is a section of the report that is particularly important.

"The U.S. Department of Defense must move more forcibly to end discrimination associated with invisible wounds of war. Reducing the stigma of mental illness will enhance opportunities to deliver prompt, effective treatment to military service members and families who live with PTSD, depression and other mental health conditions. Examples of immediate steps that can be taken to eliminate stigma and barriers to seeking help include:

• Military leader accountability for stigma and suicide: Military leaders throughout the chain of command should be required to focus on preventable psychological injuries and deaths, which should be part of their efficiency reporting process. Suicides are preventable just as are the heat and cold injuries of service members for which leaders are routinely relieved of command.
• Purple Heart for psychological wounds: Posttraumatic stress and other mental health injuries, that are the result of hostile action, including terrorism, should be eligible for award of the Purple Heart with the same level of appreciation and recognition as those awarded to warriors with visible wounds.

The Veterans Health Administration must increase service capacity by expanding provider networks to include community mental health agencies and private practitioners. The VHA should monitor the degree to which contract providers accept veterans and families as clients and should adjust networks to make care available when and where it is needed. Ongoing training in military-informed mental health treatment should be a basic requirement for contract providers. Improved distance delivery through technology should be implemented to remove the travel burden from veterans and improve the use of professional care giver time."

The entire report is here.

Please remember our military service personnel on this holiday.

As military struggles with suicides, a push for seeking help

By Adam Ashton
Tacoma News Tribune

A Washington state social worker is circulating a petition urging federal lawmakers and the military to adopt a policy declaring that service members shouldn't be punished if they seek help for behavioral health issues, such as post-traumatic stress.

Patricia Bailey, 45, believes the lack of a firm policy on whether service members could be held back in their careers for seeking counseling is one of the main obstacles keeping people in the military from pursuing treatment.

"It will give reassurance to him that if he seeks mental health counseling nothing will be in jeopardy," said Bailey, whose 13-year marriage to a Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier ended in 2008 as stress built during his deployments to Iraq.

She's targeting a gray area in the military's evolving suicide prevention and post-traumatic stress programs. Leaders at the Pentagon and at Lewis-McChord insist service members won't face professional repercussions for seeking counseling, but it's not clear how well that message reaches down the ranks.

An April study on military suicides released by the nonprofit RAND Corporation pointed out that the Defense Department hasn't taken concrete steps to reverse a perception that service members might be retired for medical reasons or lose out on a promotion if they ask for counseling. The study received funding from the Defense Department.

Bailey got a close view of Lewis-McChord's behavioral health services both as a part-time counselor between 2002 and 2004 and as someone who later reached out for help in keeping her marriage together. She'd like to see a greater emphasis on preventive programs instead of ones that kick in after an outburst, such as an arrest.

"When my husband and I were going through everything, I asked people for help," she said. "I wasn't shy. And they said 'We can't do anything for you.' You're frustrated because you can't do anything. I didn't want my marriage to end."

She's one of many people in the South Sound who are raising their voices to draw attention to the psychological toll 10 years of warfare have taken on military families. In the past year, service clubs have organized retreats for Army couples and the United Way of Pierce County put forward a proposal to deliver more resources to military families.

The military, likewise, is looking for new approaches. Madigan Army Medical Center increased its ranks of behavioral health specialists last year. Lewis-McChord recently hired a new suicide prevention officer.
Yet the Army and the base continue to struggle with how to reach distressed service members.

The Army reported that it was investigating 32 possible suicides in July, the most in any month over the past two years. Lewis-McChord officials told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that nine soldiers took their lives this year.

Read more here.