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Networks for Military Family Support with Amy Rodick · Practicing Connection

• 0:03
  Kalin Goble: Welcome to Practicing Connection, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world.
• 0:16
  Kalin Goble: Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Birch.
• 0:24
  Bob Bertsch: Hi, welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast.
• 0:26
  Bob Bertsch: I'm Bob Birch.
• 0:27
  Jessica Beckendorf: And I'm Jessica Beckendorf.
• 0:29
  Bob Bertsch: Our guest today is Ms Amy Rodick, director of the Office of Military Family Readiness and Policy for the Department of Defense.
• 0:36
  Bob Bertsch: As Director, amy is responsible for leadership, management and oversight of programs affecting military families, including military spouse career advancement, military family life, learning and the Office of Special Needs.
• 0:50
  Jessica Beckendorf: Amy has 19 years of operations and program management experience as a civil servant and active duty military officer.
• 0:57
  Jessica Beckendorf: She's an Army veteran and a current military spouse, well-versed in the many benefits and challenges of military life.
• 1:05
  Jessica Beckendorf: We are honored to be able to welcome her to the podcast.
• 1:08
  Jessica Beckendorf: Hi, amy, thank you for your service and for joining us on our Practicing Connection podcast.
• 1:14
  Amy Rodick: Good morning.
• 1:15
  Amy Rodick: Thank you so much.
• 1:15
  Amy Rodick: I'm happy to be here.
• 1:17
  Jessica Beckendorf: So, Amy, you have a wealth of experience, but what led you to your work with the Office of Military Family Readiness and Policy?
• 1:27
  Amy Rodick: Well, I you know as an Army veteran, as you mentioned, and current active duty spouse and mother of four.
• 1:33
  Amy Rodick: Really military family readiness policy is at the very core of who I am, personally and professionally.
• 1:43
  Bob Bertsch: Can you tell us more, Amy, about how the Office of Military Family Readiness and Policy contributes to military family readiness overall?
• 1:52
  Amy Rodick: I would love to.
• 1:53
  Amy Rodick: Yeah, actually our office, as well as the entire DOD team, I would say, is committed to military family readiness.
• 2:01
  Amy Rodick: And what does that mean?
• 2:02
  Amy Rodick: It means helping members and families to be prepared to face the challenges that military life often throws at you, and that's through building skills such as you know, knowledge, awareness of support and resources and sort of putting all of those things into action to enhance their own personal readiness and overall well-being.
• 2:22
  Jessica Beckendorf: So we know that family readiness and resilience can be complex.
• 2:26
  Jessica Beckendorf: How does the DoD go about addressing that complexity?
• 2:30
  Amy Rodick: Well, I'll tell you they have tried to address it through multiple angles.
• 2:35
  Amy Rodick: I think the first step is really recognizing that they do have these complex needs which can't be addressed with just one program or service.
• 2:45
  Amy Rodick: It's really sort of the landscape of all programs, services and communities to help build the support around military families, to enhance their readiness and resilience, and we really do need that network of support and services to address those needs.
• 3:03
  Amy Rodick: So we do a lot to ensure that programs and services take, you know, a holistic approach to identifying these needs and of course, we value the collaboration and partnership of the other stakeholders that we work with, you know, such as our federal partners like the VA, the Department of Labor, or community agencies such as the American Red Cross, local school boards or chambers of commerce.
• 3:28
  Amy Rodick: But we really see that military family readiness is critical to national security because it enables mission readiness and by ensuring the service members and their families have support and resources they need, we take care of the entire family unit.
• 3:45
  Bob Bertsch: So, amy, it sounds like you're describing the military family readiness system and I'm just wondering, as an entity and you know that the military family readiness system exists in policy, how does it impact the work of military family service providers?
• 4:09
  Amy Rodick: Military family readiness system is used in our policy, as you mentioned, but people don't really understand sort of the practical application or what that looks like in everyday life and it's really not a specific entity but it's more of a framework or an ecosystem, if you will.
• 4:23
  Amy Rodick: You can't just walk into a military family readiness office.
• 4:27
  Amy Rodick: It's not really a tangible thing but really it's, like I said, the ecosystem that surrounds the military service members and their families that provides the support that's really so critical to that readiness and resilience we just mentioned.
• 4:43
  Amy Rodick: And, as many of us know who are familiar with the military lifestyle, it does present unique challenges, you know, such as relocation, deployment, high stress levels, high operational demands, transition with children and schools, which I have experienced firsthand, and the constant, you know, uncertainty of you know what the next week will look like for you or your family.
• 5:06
  Amy Rodick: So the DoD really has widened its aperture and recognizes that not one single program or service can address those needs.
• 5:15
  Amy Rodick: But it really does take that ecosystem within the military family readiness system to provide that support.
• 5:21
  Amy Rodick: And of course we have resources such as Military OneSource to include military installations and some of the other support services that are housed on Military OneSource.
• 5:32
  Amy Rodick: But really what we're trying to encourage and trying to inform people and educate folks is that the Military Family Readiness System is really the promotion and sort of the integration of all these services, when possible, and collaboration and partnerships that support the military family.
• 5:51
  Amy Rodick: It's really the act of sort of enabling service providers to meet service members and families where they are, with the appropriate resources to address the different dimensions of the issue at hand.
• 6:07
  Jessica Beckendorf: I love the description you used of ecosystem.
• 6:10
  Jessica Beckendorf: I've also described it as like a network of networks, but I think ecosystem is probably a much better encapsulated word for this, so you started to touch on this a little bit.
• 6:21
  Jessica Beckendorf: The DOD instruction on military family readiness states that the MFRS the Military Family Readiness System must, among other things, link informal networks like family, friends, neighbors, the people that are around you, and formal networks like schools and faith-based organizations, medical organizations, professionals in the community.
• 6:47
  Jessica Beckendorf: Why is that important and how do you think service providers can help in linking those networks?
• 6:55
  Amy Rodick: It's a great question when we think down to the simplest terms and the most common kind of concepts of informal networks.
• 7:02
  Amy Rodick: It's really your friends in your community, and we want people to think about the military family readiness system in a more local manner.
• 7:10
  Amy Rodick: So it's not so much you know the DOD or these federal agencies or these you know big government, but it's as important and as essential and as useful and effective looking at it from the local level.
• 7:23
  Amy Rodick: So then, those formal networks are your programs and services, and so when you think about it, you know.
• 7:29
  Amy Rodick: One of the examples that we wanted to highlight is like when you move to a new location, you're a military family.
• 7:34
  Amy Rodick: You pick up about every two years, the ecosystem or support network that you've established at one location now becomes dissolved as you move to another location, and there's a lot of different things that you have to coordinate as a military family for each one of those moves, you know trying to establish medical care providers, trying to get enrolled and informed about the schools within your area, not to mention jobs for military spouses, which can be significantly disrupted through all those moves as well spouses which can be significantly disrupted through all those moves as well.
• 8:12
  Amy Rodick: But when you move, you know you're starting out at zero and where you may make some informal connections prior to making that physical move.
• 8:18
  Amy Rodick: It really is a challenge to sort of create some of those more formal networks until you're physically in place and you know the internet and virtual resources are, of course, helpful, but it's that in-person equity, it's that crowdsourcing, it's that you know, spouse-to-spouse referral or family-to-family referral that really makes the most impact for military families when they move, and really that is what encompasses this military family readiness system.
• 8:49
  Amy Rodick: So it's the combination of those informal networks, like we mentioned, the friends and community and as well as combining some of those more formal networks.
• 9:00
  Bob Bertsch: So, amy, with that in mind, what advice do you have for service providers who are looking to link those formal and informal networks and engage with the military family readiness system?
• 9:11
  Amy Rodick: Thank you for that question as well.
• 9:12
  Amy Rodick: Yeah, so I think sometimes when we think about this military family readiness system, we think about it being this very large, the ecosystem, right.
• 9:23
  Amy Rodick: But really when you try to scale it down to just the local level, you realize you're not alone.
• 9:30
  Amy Rodick: You realize, okay, I am a part of a larger system, but the responsibility for solving some of these issues does not rest solely on you or a program, but there's a whole network of resources that are ready within the military family readiness system to support you and your family.
• 9:50
  Amy Rodick: You just have to access them and you have to engage in your community to be informed about what resources are available.
• 9:58
  Amy Rodick: People are so willing to help and especially those who are military connected.
• 10:03
  Amy Rodick: You know they want to provide support to families.
• 10:07
  Amy Rodick: They just don't always identify themselves.
• 10:09
  Amy Rodick: So I would say you know the solution again is not at the DOD, federal or service level, but I really do think of it more as a local solution.
• 10:19
  Amy Rodick: So I would encourage people to be curious about the military population within your community.
• 10:25
  Amy Rodick: There's probably a military-connected family within your community.
• 10:27
  Amy Rodick: There's probably a military connected family within your neighborhood.
• 10:30
  Amy Rodick: It doesn't have to be installation based and I think sometimes we're wrapped up in that installation based military family, but we have so many more military families and service members who are geographically dispersed, who aren't necessarily assigned to a specific installation.
• 10:48
  Amy Rodick: We also have our Reserve and National Guard service members and their families who are in your communities.
• 10:55
  Amy Rodick: That's the whole idea.
• 10:56
  Amy Rodick: So how do we go and support them as service providers, as community members, in support of the military family readiness system?
• 11:06
  Amy Rodick: So be curious and engage.
• 11:09
  Jessica Beckendorf: So, amy, what personal practices might you have that help with your own readiness and resilience?
• 11:15
  Amy Rodick: One personal practice that I employ is that I don't give up.
• 11:19
  Amy Rodick: I'm not scared by administrative tasks.
• 11:22
  Amy Rodick: That's the other thing.
• 11:23
  Amy Rodick: So, as a military spouse, when you move you can't let the administrivia intimidate you Enrolling children in school, enrolling in the child development centers, reestablishing healthcare so I try to just pace myself without trying to become completely overwhelmed.
• 11:43
  Amy Rodick: And at the point of feeling overwhelmed which can happen to the best of us I take a knee.
• 11:50
  Amy Rodick: I take a knee and I sort of just regroup, set some additional tasks again, just incrementally, and then I say look, it may not be on my timeline, but everything will get done.
• 12:04
  Amy Rodick: And that's sort of my mantra.
• 12:06
  Amy Rodick: Just in life and I'm being very honest here Even like in my day-to-day with my family and work schedule, my mantra is it may not be done on my timeline, but everything will get done.
• 12:18
  Amy Rodick: And you just keep on pushing through and it will get done.
• 12:24
  Amy Rodick: And when it does, you're like okay, I'm onto the next thing.
• 12:27
  Amy Rodick: And you just kind of just keep on going, but every once in a while, taking that what we call the tactical pause, taking that tactical pause, take a knee, regroup yourself as you need so that you don't become completely overwhelmed, and then just set those little tasks, kind of leading you into forward movement, all over again, because it can be daunting, and then knowing that there's resources out there to help you.
• 12:55
  Amy Rodick: If at some point taking that knee and sort of you know, thinking about those next steps is not working for you realize there's other resources out there that you can tap into to kind of get you over that hurdle.
• 13:08
  Amy Rodick: You know I mentioned Military OneSource.
• 13:11
  Amy Rodick: We also have amazing non-clinical counseling services through our Military Family Life Counselor Program, which is amazing and I've used them.
• 13:22
  Amy Rodick: You have a customer as well and they're extremely helpful.
• 13:25
  Amy Rodick: Again, just to kind of get you through a potential impasse or a current impasse that you may be experiencing in your personal life, because it is hard, it really is, but at the end of the day, nothing that's worth doing isn't hard, right?
• 13:41
  Amy Rodick: So you just keep on pushing through and you'll get to the other side.
• 13:45
  Amy Rodick: It's all good.
• 13:47
  Bob Bertsch: Amy Rodick is Director of the Office of Military Family Readiness and Policy for the Department of Defense.
• 13:53
  Bob Bertsch: Amy, thank you so much for joining us.
• 13:55
  Amy Rodick: Thank you for having me.
• 13:56
  Amy Rodick: It was a pleasure.
• 13:59
  Jessica Beckendorf: That's it for this episode.
• 14:01
  Jessica Beckendorf: Thanks for joining us.
• 14:02
  Jessica Beckendorf: If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend.
• 14:07
  Bob Bertsch: We'd like to thank our co-producer, coral Owen, our announcer, kaylin Goebel, maggie Lucas and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing, and Nathan Grimm, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast.
• 14:19
  Bob Bertsch: We'll be back next week with a new Practicast on exploring your character strengths.
• 14:28
  Kalin Goble: Until next week with a new Practicast on exploring your character strengths.
• 14:36
  Kalin Goble: Until then, keep practicing.
• 14:37
  Kalin Goble: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of One Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense, under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333.