--- title: "Psych News Alert: Resilience Intervention Helps Entire Military Family" description: Military families benefited from an intervention program designed to reduce psychological symptoms, increase resilience, and improve fami... image: https://alert.psychnews.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Military%20family_350917352-Jun-24-2025-05-16-04-0877-PM.jpg --- 12/24/15 12:00 AM # Resilience Intervention Helps Entire Military Family ![Picture of Psychiatric News Alert](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Psych%20News%20Email%20Banners/PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png?width=50&name=PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png) [ Psychiatric News Alert ](https://alert.psychnews.org/author/psychiatric-news-alert) Share: [facebook-f icon ](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html) [linkedin-in icon ](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html) [Twitter icon ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html) [pinterest-p icon ](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/link/?url=https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html) [envelope icon ](mailto:?body=https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html) | ![](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Military%20family_350917352-Jun-24-2025-05-16-02-3166-PM.jpg?width=133&height=200&name=Military%20family_350917352-Jun-24-2025-05-16-02-3166-PM.jpg) | | | --- | --- | Military families benefited from an intervention program designed to reduce psychological symptoms, increase resilience, and improve family functioning, according to Patricia Lester, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues. Their study appears in the January 2016 issue of the [Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry](http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(15)00692-9/fulltext). The researchers studied 2,615 families, which included 1,426 service-member parents, 2,073 civilian parents, and 3,810 children. At least one parent in the family had been deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lester et al. employed FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress), an eight-session program that included an initial assessment, family psychoeducation and parenting guidance, a narrative component looking at key family transitions, and resilience skill building. At follow-up, both parents and children showed reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, wrote Lester. Parents reported better family functioning, and children had improved social behaviors. Many parents joined the program hoping to help their children but eventually found that participation benefited the whole family, said Lester. “Taken as a whole, this evaluation study suggests that participation in the intervention provided durable improvements in parent and child psychological health outcomes.” The FOCUS trial was conducted with families living on U.S. military bases, but it and other interventions should be tested in other settings, given that Reserve and National Guard personnel make up 43 percent of the Armed Forces, wrote Bonnie Ohye, Ph.D., and Eric Bui, M.D., Ph.D., in an accompanying [editorial](http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(15)00693-0/abstract). For more in Psychiatric News about military family issues, see “[Troops Face Complex, but Not Inevitable, Mental Health Issues](http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2015.6b12).” Also see [Care of Military Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families](http://psychiatryonline.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.9781585625161), available from American Psychiatric Association Publishing. (Image: MichaelJung/Shutterstock.com) [APA](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/apa), [psychiatry](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/psychiatry), [JAACAP](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/jaacap), [children's mental health](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/childrens-mental-health), [military mental health](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/military-mental-health), [AACAP](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/aacap), [UCLA](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/ucla), [FOCUS](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/focus), [Patricia Lester](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/patricia-lester) ## Related posts [![](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/MilitFamily_68018101-Jun-24-2025-06-36-06-4834-PM.jpg?height=200&name=MilitFamily_68018101-Jun-24-2025-06-36-06-4834-PM.jpg) ](https://alert.psychnews.org/2011/12/resilience-training-boosts-military.html) [psychiatry](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/psychiatry), [stress](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/stress), [military](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/military), [mental health](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/mental-health), [resiliency](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/resiliency) ## [Resilience Training Boosts Military Families](https://alert.psychnews.org/2011/12/resilience-training-boosts-military.html) ![Picture of Psychiatric News Alert](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Psych%20News%20Email%20Banners/PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png?width=50&name=PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png) [Psychiatric News Alert](https://alert.psychnews.org/author/psychiatric-news-alert) 12/14/11 12:00 AM [ Read more ](https://alert.psychnews.org/2011/12/resilience-training-boosts-military.html) [![](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Happy%208-10%20year%20olds%20PS-4.jpg?height=200&name=Happy%208-10%20year%20olds%20PS-4.jpg) ](https://alert.psychnews.org/2016/02/young-transgender-children-with-family.html) [psychiatry](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/psychiatry), [pediatrics](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/pediatrics), [depression](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/depression), [anxiety](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/anxiety), [transgender mental health issues](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/transgender-mental-health-issues), [M.D.](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/m-d-), [transgender](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/transgender), [child and adolescent psychiatry](https://alert.psychnews.org/tag/child-and-adolescent-psychiatry) ## [Young Transgender Children With Family Support Show No Rise in Depression](https://alert.psychnews.org/2016/02/young-transgender-children-with-family.html) ![Picture of Psychiatric News Alert](https://alert.psychnews.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Psych%20News%20Email%20Banners/PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png?width=50&name=PN-Blue-Box_rgb.png) [Psychiatric News Alert](https://alert.psychnews.org/author/psychiatric-news-alert) 2/26/16 12:00 AM Young children who identify as transgender and are supported by their families are no more likely... 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[ Read more ](https://alert.psychnews.org/2014/05/brief-screening-tool-uses-five.html) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Psychiatric News Alert", "url" : "https://alert.psychnews.org/author/psychiatric-news-alert" }, "dateModified" : "2025-06-24T17:16:18.228Z", "datePublished" : "2015-12-24T05:00:00.000Z", "headline" : "Psych News Alert: Resilience Intervention Helps Entire Military Family", "image" : [ "https://alert.psychnews.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Military%20family_350917352-Jun-24-2025-05-16-04-0877-PM.jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://alert.psychnews.org/2015/12/resilience-intervention-helps-entire.html", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://alert.psychnews.org/hubfs/PN-Blue-Box.jpg" } } } ```