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Background: The mental health of children is a primary public health concern; adolescents of military personnel may be at increased risk of experiencing poorer well-being overall and depressive symptoms specifically. These adolescents experience individual and intrafamilial stressors of parental deployment and reintegration, which are directly and indirectly associated with internalizing behaviors., Purpose: The present study sought to better understand the influence of parental military connectedness and parental deployment on adolescent mental health., Methods: Data from the 2011 California Healthy Kids Survey examined feeling sad or hopeless, suicidal ideation, well-being, and depressive symptoms by military connectedness in a subsample (n = 14,299) of seventh-, ninth-, and 11th-grade California adolescents. Cross-classification tables and multiple logistic regression analyses were used., Results: More than 13% of the sample had a parent or sibling in the military. Those with military connections were more likely to report depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. Controlling for grade, gender, and race/ethnicity, reporting any familial deployment compared with no deployments was associated with increasing odds of experiencing sadness or hopelessness, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation., Conclusions: Findings emphasize the increased risk of mental health issues among youth with parents (and siblings) in the military. Although deployment-related mental health stressors are less likely during peace, during times of war there is a need for increased screening in primary care and school settings. Systematic referral systems and collaboration with community-based mental health centers will bolster screening and services., (Copyright © 2014 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The present analysis sought to explore the normative rates and correlates of school victimization and weapon carrying among military-connected and nonmilitary-connected youth in public schools in Southern California., Methods: Data are from a sub-sample of the 2011 California Healthy Kids Survey (N=14,512). Items to assess victimization and weapon carrying were separated into three categories: physical acts (e.g., being pushed or shoved), nonphysical acts (e.g., having rumors spread about them) and weapon carrying., Results: The bivariate results indicate that youth with a military-connected parent had higher rates of physical victimization (56.8%), nonphysical victimization (68.1%), and weapon carrying (14.4%) compared to those with siblings serving (55.2%, 65.2%, and 11.4%, respectively) and nonmilitary-connected (50.3%, 61.6%, and 8.9%, respectively) youth. Having a parent in the military increased the odds of weapon carrying by 29% (Odds Ratio=1.29, 95% confidence interval=1.02-1.65). Changing schools and a larger number of family member deployments in the past 10years were associated with significant increases in the likelihood of victimization and weapon carrying., Conclusions: The results of this analysis warrant a focus on school supports for youth experiencing parental military service, multiple relocations and deployments of a family member., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Field education is a vital part of learning and training for students pursuing an MSW degree. Guided by competencies created by the Council on Social Work Education, MSW programs are continuously evaluating the effectiveness of field experiences. U.S.-based public schools lack the training and capacity to provide adequate support to military-connected students. To understand the skills and competencies of MSW students placed in militaryconnected schools, the authors collected data from 30 first-year MSW students and their eight field instructors at two time points (fall and spring) during the 2010-2011 academic year. Both students and instructors gave higher-than-midpoint ratings to students on competencies at both time points. At time 1, students rated themselves lowest on application of complex practice models, policy issues, and working on the macro level with military organizations, whereas instructors rated students lowest on items related to systemic monitoring and research in practice. Progress toward competencies during the academic year was noted for more than half of the competencies. Although as groups, students and field instructors provided similar assessments, similarity within student-instructor dyads was low, suggesting opportunities for growth in the context of field instruction and the need for development of individual student-instructor relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]