The Department of Defense (DoD) has developed some very useful Web sites and tools to assist military families, to include those with children with special needs, in a variety of ways. MilitaryHOMEFRONT is the official Web site for Military Community and Family Policy (MC&FP) program information, policy, and guidance designed to help troops and their families, leaders, and service providers. Among its many resources is the DoD Special Needs Parent Toolkit, which has comprehensive information and tools geared towards helping military families with special needs children navigate the maze of medical and special education services, community support and benefits and entitlements. When planning your next PCS move, the Families in Transition module is an excellent place to start.
The Families in Transition module will guide you to some additional, excellent supports: Plan My Move and Military Installations. Plan My Move is an on-line moving tool that helps a service and family member organize their move. By providing your current duty station, future duty station, and the moving date, Plan My Move generates a three month calendar with general and installation specific information necessary when moving for the military. The calendar can be customized to meet your family situation. Tasks can be added, removed or modified. The length of the calendar can be changed from three months to one month or two years. (Note: OAR recommends at least a six-month calendar for families that have children with autism.) In addition to the helpful tips and articles, there are checklists, phone lists, additional resources for each subject and key contact information for offices on both the old and new installation. Topics addressed for each installation include:
- Child care and youth services
- Shipping household goods
- Housing – permanent and temporary
- Education and employment
- Special needs
- Healthcare
- Sponsorship
- And many other areas of interest
Plan My Move outlines the moving process, breaking it down into clear manageable steps. This resource is especially useful to family or service members who are completing their first PCS move, and is very helpful to any military member who needs help remembering all the details associated with a move. Plan My Move is an organizational tool designed to guide the user through the moving process.
Military Installations works hand in hand with Plan My Move. It provides contact information for programs and services, maps and directions, links to comprehensive location overviews, and community points of interest for military installations worldwide. With this resource, service members and family members can quickly find relevant information about their new installation. They can also print a booklet of all the installation information in hard copy from the Installation Overview pages of MilitaryHOMEFRONT.
For those looking for more information on the surrounding community, Military OneSource can provide detailed information about the programs and services available in the civilian communities near the new installation. (Note: You must be an active duty or reserve service member or a member of a service member’s immediate family to access this resource. There is a registration process that is very simple and straightforward.)
It’s a family move. While you are focusing on your next duty station and getting your family (including a child with autism) smoothly and safely from one place to the other, remember that moves pose challenges for everyone in the family, including pets. DoD has created Miltary Youth on the Move, a Web site that helps the other children in the family deal with some of the anxiety and challenges caused by a PCS move and change of schools. Miltary Youth on the Move is a tool designed expressly for children 6 to 18 years old. It uses humor, empathy, testimonials, and upbeat visuals to provide a wealth of relocation information and to address the challenges facing military children and youth as they cope with the strains of moving. It addresses things from three school level perspectives: elementary, middle, and high school, and extends further into things like healthy eating, physical activity, handling money, and coping with difficult issues like loneliness, bullying, or perhaps parents’ divorce. (Note: It is referred to as Military Teens On the Move in the DoD Special Needs Toolkit, but the link takes you to Military Youth on the Move.)
