Strengthening and Protecting Veteran Family Relationships: Co-design of a Preventative Relationship Intervention

This project will explore the evidence base for couple relationship education interventions and their suitability for the military and veteran population.

About the project

Military and veteran families experience unique challenges in navigating the military lifestyle and the transition to civilian life. These challenges, including frequent postings and separations, can place pressure onto couple relationships and ultimately lead to relationship distress and breakdown. This research examines how to best protect relationships from these challenges by utilising existing evidence-based couple interventions tailored to the military and veteran population.

The project will investigate what relationship interventions currently exist and how they might be adapted to address the needs of military and veteran families. This will occur through:

• a review of the academic literature;
• consultations with stakeholders who work with military and veteran couples; and
• focus groups with military and veteran couples to discuss their needs and how interventions could adapted to meet those needs

The project aims to determine how existing programs could be adapted and potentially trialled with military and veteran couples.

Researchers

This project is being conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The project is funded by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Applied Research Program.