UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State (Clearinghouse) has received $1.4 million from the U.S. Air Force for a major initiative to expand access for airmen and their families to evidence-informed parenting programs to strengthen military family resilience and well-being.
The Thrive Initiative contains a continuum of evidence-informed parenting programs designed to empower parents and caregivers with skills and strategies they can use to promote positive child development, resilience and overall family well-being. This new three-year project, which began in February, will focus on the widespread implementation and assessment of Thrive programming at as many as six Air Force installations. Employing Thrive programming will help ensure these families have access to high-quality, research-backed parenting resources tailored to their specific challenges.
“Military families face unique stressors that can impact family dynamics and child development,” said Daniel F. Perkins, principal scientist at the Clearinghouse, an applied research center at the Social Science Research Institute and co-funded faculty and professor of family and youth resiliency and policy in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “Through this collaboration with the Air Force, we aim to equip parents with the tools they need to navigate these challenges effectively and foster strong, healthy family relationships, which has been empirically linked to mission-readiness of service members.”
During the first year, the Clearinghouse will partner with Air Force professionals at identified installations to plan for the launch of the parenting programs. This phase includes identifying installations, building rapport with installation points of contact, preparing program approval documentation and developing marketing materials to attract parents and caregivers to participate. The Clearinghouse also plans to hire personnel, including military spouses who live on or near the identified installations, to recruit parents and caregivers.
In the program’s second year, 480 Air Force parents and caregivers will participate in Thrive’s universal parent-education programs. Half will engage in facilitated virtual group sessions, while half will complete the program online at their own pace.
“This presents an opportunity for us to compare the experiences of military-connected parents and caregivers participating in online-only sessions with parents and caregivers who receive support from a trained facilitator,” said Terri Rudy, Thrive research portfolio manager at the Clearinghouse.
In years two and three, researchers will analyze engagement data and participant feedback to assess each delivery method — facilitated virtual group sessions or self-paced online learning — and examine how the specific delivery approaches support military families. Findings from this research will guide future Air Force family-support initiatives to ensure the most effective delivery of parenting resources is administered to military families.
“The Thrive Initiative integrates decades of research from multiple disciplines into practical, accessible programs that support parents and caregivers as they raise their children from infancy through adolescence,” said Ryan Chesnut, assistant research professor at the Clearinghouse. “By evaluating Thrive programming effectiveness within military communities, we can ensure that these resources continue to meet the evolving needs of service members and their families.”
The Thrive Initiative is the result of a partnership funded by the Department of Defense between the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through a grant/cooperative agreement with Penn State.
For more information about the Clearinghouse and its initiatives, please visit https://militaryfamilies.psu.edu/.