By Christine Leccese
As part of our focus this month on Guard and Reserve mental health, Military Pathways reached out to those who provide special services to Guard and Reserve families. I caught up with Kiki Yoshimoto, the Operation Military Kids project coordinator for Hawaii and asked about the program, which reaches out to military children. Below is a part of our conversation.
Why do you serve Guard and Reserve families? What is different about being a Guard or Reserve child?
Operation: Military Kids (OMK) is a collaborative effort among many different organizations to build capacity in local communities to support military children affected by deployment. OMK supports the children and youth of service members who serve in active duty, Guard, and Reserve, with a major focus to address the deployment issues that confront the kids who are geographically dispersed away from military installations. Until faced with the deployment of a loved one, these “suddenly military” families have typically been civilians with little or no experience dealing with military culture. Living far from an installation, Guard and Reserve children and youth do not have easy access to the available support services.
What kind of activities do you do to strengthen family ties in the Guard and Reserve families?
Hawaii OMK provides deployment support through various educational, recreational and social programming that is structured using the 4H experiential learning model. This allows the participants to make sense of the activities in terms of how they can apply what they have learned not only surrounding the deployment of a loved one, but in every day of their lives.
For the particular OMK Ohana camp coming up, in addition to the structured life skills lessons (communication skills, social skills, coping skills and self-efficacy) that the youth will participate in, there will also be an equal balance of social and recreational activities to help strengthen family ties while building networks of peer support. Some of the camp-style activities include archery, swimming, arts & crafts, alpine tower, climbing wall, odyssey ropes course and campfire.
Are any Guard and Reserve children eligible?
The August 10-12 OMK Ohana Camp was open to families in the pre, during or post stage of deployment; if pre or post deployment, it must be within 1 year of the service member’s deploying date or within 1 year following service member’s return home. In addition, eligible families must have at least one youth between the ages of 5-17; younger siblings are welcome to attend. Camp is open to all service branches, active duty, Guard and Reserve, but priority registration is given to Guard and Reserve families or active duty families that do not live on or near an installation.
What kind of feedback do you get from the children and families?
Children, youth and their family members continue to show interest in participating in our camps and other events that we host, which is a sign that we are taking strides in the right direction to provide quality youth development and support for Hawaii’s Military community. Guard and Reserve families have such unique challenges, but through local partnerships and networks of support that have prospered, I believe that our young heroes feel a sense of belonging and appreciation for the very important roles that they play.
Christine Leccese is the communications and marketing manager at Military Pathways.
