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The Marines New Parent Support Program

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Okay, Marines - listen up! You thought that recruit training was tough, well you've haven't been through anything until you've roughed it through "Dad's Basic Boot Camp" or "Mom's Basic Training."


All joking aside, the Marine Corps is focused on helping new parents tackle the joy and challenges of welcoming a baby boy or girl into the family. The program is known as the "New Parent Support Program (NPSP)" and it is available to Marine families and military families from all service branches whom have an expectant mom or will soon be adopting a child.

The program is run by social workers, nurses and marriage counselors who are professionals in their fields and dedicated to helping Marine families. The special part of the program is that these professionals, are on call 24 hours a day to help Marine families with any questions or concerns.

These experts have a special understanding of the challenges that face military families, with a focus on the issues of deployment and family moves; they understand that Marine families are often hundreds of miles from their home town and friends.

The program aims to give families the skills to help them deal with the stresses that accompany the joys of being a parent; with a particular focus on how a parent can care for children while the Marine spouse is deployed. The experts also help families understand some of the basics of a child's growth and development, so they'll know what to expect as the child ages.

The program is also open to expecting parents who may already have children; it's not uncommon for families to have to adjust to having a small infant enter a growing family. The issues of new brothers and sisters learning to love and accept each other can often be helped with some skills and sound practices.

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The programs services are:

  • "Basic Training" - Expecting parents learn how to care for an infant and how to interpret the needs of a newborn
  • Parent Classes - Hands on information about how to parent toddlers and young children
  • Referrals - New to the Marine Corps? This will help you find the right Marine services for your family
  • Play Morning - Interactive play group that teaches parents how to play with their children at each stage of development; understanding the cognitive and motor skills of the child is emphasized
  • Home Visits - A child pro will come to your home and help you with any concerns or questions you have about parenting styles or your child


The program is also an excellent way to meet other Marine families, learn about Marine Corps services as well as develop a support system of people who can help during the ups and downs of life in the military. The NPSP is a service of the Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS).

A NPSP team is located at all U.S. Marine Corps bases, including Hawaii and Iwakuni and Okinawa, Japan. To learn more about the program, visit http www.usmc-mccs.org

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Posted by Allied Blogger Admin @ 10:05 AM • 0 comments

Children and Teen Programs in the Marine Corps

Friday, January 30, 2009

The Marine Corps has established programs to make sure that the children of Marines get the educational, social and recreational opportunities to help them reach their potential. The programs are run by the Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS) and are especially important right now while the Corps is on a war footing.

Military spouses have rightly received their due lately for the number of sacrifices they’ve made to support our nation’s armed forces; yet we must also recognize that children who go without a parent during a deployment are also making a great sacrifice.

Depending on the age, often children don’t fully understand why a parent has to be away from the family for a year, or even more. And while the service member is deployed, the remaining parent often has more stress and responsibility, further adding to the nervousness of children.

Just as any country rightly recognizes the family as the basic block of society, so does the Marine Corps appreciate that families support the individual Marine. Research indicates that the legacy of broken families ultimately has consequences for society; in this same vein the Marine Corps appreciates that a disrupted, hurting Marine family will affect the fighting ability of an individual Marine.

    To help assist parents, the Marines have instigated a program designed to help children and teens on and off base. These programs are for children from six weeks all the way up to the age of 18. Some of the programs include:
  • Child Development Centers: Children are cared for the whole day, for part of they day or even for one hour; they are staffed by trained caregivers who must meet the accreditation standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
  • Family Child Care Homes: Child care is provided in housing owned or leased by the government and under control of the base commander. FCC providers are private contractors certified and monitored by the command.
  • Youth Activities: A variety of recreational activities are available for children, including centers with foosball, pool tables, video games, etc., for the benefit of Marine Corps children; there are also computer labs for student homework and skill development classes.
    The Marine Corp has also teamed up with the Boys and Girls Club of America to expand youth and teen programs. The partnership with the Club provides materials and services for health, social, education and character development programs.


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None of these programs are a substitute for the principal role played by a mother and father, but they can be a helpful augmentation to the family’s role – particularly during times of deployment when one parent may be away.

While the Marine Corps has a variety of services to help Marine families, many families may be new to the Corps or a particular installation and not familiar with the wide-range of services they can tap into. Marines should always communicate with new Marines and their families and make sure they’re informed about the services offered by the Corps.

And with the news that 30,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan in 2009, it’s a sure bet that their will be Marine families who will need to lean a littler harder on the Marine community and services that make deployment a little bit easier.

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Posted by Allied Blogger Admin @ 9:57 AM • 0 comments

California Marine Families Get Christmas Surprise

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas and the holiday season are a time of great joy for families, but for many military families with loved ones deployed overseas, it can be a time of stress and worry as well.
Marine families at Camp Pendleton and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in southern California, however, got a boost to their Christmas spirits, when two charitable groups stopped by to distribute free Christmas trees to Marine families.

The "Trees for Troops 2008" organization stopped at MCAS Miramar in San Diego to distribute free trees to Marine Corps families, while at Camp Pendleton, the Christmas Spirit Foundation and FedEx joined forces with the National Christmas Tree Association to give away 1,000 Christmas trees to Marine families on the sprawling West Coast base.
Although it's nice to receive, the Marine Corps also understands it is better to give, and that's why the Marine Corps Reserve's "Toys for Tots Program" will once again be providing donated toys to deserving children across the country.

And when it comes to giving to Marine families, active-duty Marines have the chance to help their wives and husbands by taking advantage of military spouse scholarship programs that help marine spouses get the training and education opportunities they need to compete in a very tight job market.

Although every school's military spouse program is unique, many schools join a service member's enrollment to their military spouse education programs. For example, some schools will provide no-tuition courses to a military spouse when his/her service member spouse enrolls in the institution. This allows both husband and wife to get the training and skills they will both need to compete in today's work world.

Now when an active-duty Marine enrolls in a school using Marine Tuition Assistance, this means that he/she will pay nothing for tuition, and then if the program has a military spouse scholarship program, it's possible that they will both train without spending a dime.

Although many Marines and their spouses choose to work toward a degree, there are a number of vocational schools - many of them with online courses - which prepare military families for a number of career paths.

In the medical field, there are a number of medical office careers, including: medical coding, medical billing, medical administrative assassinating, dental office assisting and medical transcription. Medical transcription is a particularly attractive career for military spouses because it allows people to work from home.

Although the real estate industry is experiencing the pain that nearly every field is, it is inevitable that when the recession ends, real estate will rebound. Military families can get their real estate training now and be ready for the eventual rebound. And there's more to real estate than just selling homes, career paths in real estate also include positions like home inspector, property manager and even licensed contractor.

Solid business training programs like administrative assistant or small business management which train students to become independent business owners or provide support to others.

The good news is that these career training programs can all be found 100% online at schools that specialize in distance learning for service members and their families.

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Posted by Allied Blogger Admin @ 1:56 PM • 0 comments