Enlisted boss targets help to families - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Enlisted boss targets help to families

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James A. Roy knows from experience that it’s tough on kids to start a new school — his 9-year-old twin boys have already moved seven times — and maybe even tougher on their moms and dads, who have to find out all the school’s rules and programs.

That’s why the Air Force is expanding a program that helps parents new to a community who have just had a permanent change of station get up to speed on their children’s education.

The program was one of four aimed at families that Roy highlighted July 22 at a congressional hearing, his first since taking over as the top enlistee at the end of June. He also discussed special needs families, improvements to child care and employment for spouses.

Permanent change of stations

Roy and his wife, Paula, moved from Hawaii to Washington D.C., just before he started his new job. Their sons will enter the fourth grade when the new school year starts in a few short weeks.

After their PCS moves, the Roys had to learn the new school’s standards and requirements — to play sports, for example. The expanded program, he said, will provide a liaison at each base to tell parents what they need to know about their child’s school, including academic standards, promotion and graduation requirements, special needs services, eligibility for sports and extracurricular activities, and the transfer of credits and courses.

Overseas bases as well as 12 stateside bases already have liaisons, Roy said. More newly trained school liaisons will be sent to bases across the service in September, though the Air Force couldn’t provide the exact number.

Airmen at bases without liaisons can still learn about local schools at Airman and Family Readiness Centers, Roy said. He told Congress that keeping parents informed remains a priority, especially as college admission gets more competitive.

“While these are not new issues, national emphasis on quality education and higher standards for admission to many post-high school education and training institutions increase the stakes for military children,” Roy wrote in a statement to Congress.

Child care

Adding more child care was a top priority for the Air Force in 2008 — and remains so this year.

In February, Roy’s predecessor told Congress that the service didn’t have enough centers to care for all of its airmen’s children.

“Right now we have need for about 1,900 child-care spaces and would like to cut that to zero,” 15th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Rodney McKinley told the House Appropriations subcommittee on military construction, veterans affairs and related agencies.

In his testimony before the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel, Roy reported that the Pentagon has approved 18 construction projects through its “Growing Child Care Spaces” initiative that will add 1,242 child-care spaces. Funding also has been approved for 14 more centers that will have space for 2,554 more children, according to Roy’s statement. Those projects will be finished by 2011.

“When all funded construction is complete, projected to be done in fiscal year 2011, our known child care space deficit will be eliminated,” the statement read.

If parents can’t find a spot for their child on base, the Air Force provides $142 a month to help them pay for child care off base.

Once the new centers are up, Roy said the Air Force will “renovate or replace the aging infrastructure at child development and youth centers already in existence.”

Air Force parents serving reserve duty also will get more help this year. The service expanded its Home Community Care program, which provides free in-home child care to parents during drill weekends.

The service now has 43 participating family child-care homes in 37 locations in 26 states. Family child-care homes are civilian-contracted homes accredited by the National Association for Family Child Care and set up through the Air Force.

More than 24,000 hours of child care were provided at off-base family child-care homes to reservists during drill weekends last year. Roy said he expected that number to increase to 36,000 hours in 2009.

Hiring spouses

The Air Force wants to help airmen’s spouses find jobs or receive unemployment compensation when they have to leave their jobs because of permanent change-of-station orders, Roy said.

Besides job-training programs on base, the service provides scholarships for spouses.

My Career Advancement Account provides up to $6,000 for education, licenses and certification. Spouses overseas can receive grants up to $1,500 for college from the Air Force Aid Society’s Spouse Tuition Assistance Program.

“We are working on providing opportunities to train and license in portable career fields to abbreviate the job search timeframe for these spouses,” Roy said in his statement.

After the hearing, Roy told Air Force Times that he plans to also expand the Key Spouse Program, which is led by a unit commander or first sergeant’s spouse. They provide a link between the unit commander and an airman’s spouse when his or her loved one is deployed.

Special needs families

Service officials found a hole in the Exceptional Family Member Program that aids the 14,000 Air Force families who have special needs children.

The program identifies those airmen and ensures they are assigned only to bases near the care needed to treat their child’s disease or disability. It doesn’t, though: It provides a liaison at each base to get new families enrolled in the programs that their child needs. Help is provided at the family support centers, but the service is working on a program dedicated solely to helping special needs families in transition.

“We have determined the need for a companion program to provide a family’s support as they move from location to location,” Roy said in his statement. “We are actively engaged in creating a comprehensive program that offers these families consistent support and reassurance through their moves, extended or repeated deployments, and throughout their military career.”