Turning army household voices into actual change

Each day, army and veteran households face challenges and have experiences typically distinctive to army life.

Frequent relocations, missed birthdays and holidays, army partner unemployment, and monetary insecurity: Blue Star Families desires to listen to about these lived experiences to drive for actual change.

The annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey (MFLS) is how Blue Star Families takes the true, lived experiences of army and veteran households and turns these information factors into actual motion.

The MFLS is the most important and most complete survey of army and veteran households, with greater than 114,000 responses collected since its inception in 2009. The collective information of hundreds of army and veteran households members tells a robust story — one which Blue Star Families shares with policymakers, army leaders, and neighborhood companions.

Insights from surveys helped form key provisions within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), together with these provisions included in H.R. 5009, the “Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025” regulation:

• A 14.5% pay improve for junior enlisted service members (E-4 and under), positively impacting roughly 500,000 service members.
• Expanded childcare applications, together with payment help and aggressive wages for suppliers.
• Increased entry to the Basic Needs Allowance, serving to tackle meals insecurity amongst army households.
• Stronger employment help for army spouses, together with expanded little one care throughout job searches, improved skilled licensure portability, and the everlasting institution of the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot Program.

Survey responses inform Blue Star Families programming, together with the 4+1 Commitment, Blue Star Support Circles, and Blue Star Welcome Week — all designed to strengthen connection, help and belonging throughout the army neighborhood.

By taking the MFLS, you’re serving to to outline what army and veteran household help must be. Your story issues. We hope you’ll share it and assist drive change ahead for households like yours.

To take part, you should be military-connected, 18 years of age or older, have entry to a tool with Internet, and supply consent. The survey is for analysis functions solely, and will take about 20 minutes to finish on-line. When you share your experiences, you may select to enter a drawing for one in every of 10 $100 Amazon reward playing cards. If you may have any questions on this analysis, please contact Dr. Emily Becher at survey@bluestarfam.org.