Area Agencies Offer Help To Military Spouses, Children
Since the increase in the military population in the El Paso area, some agencies are focusing their efforts on families impacted by deployment and the stress of war that often extends to the family left behind.
Some little ones at the Child Crisis Center are temporarily taking some time away from their family in the military.
“A lot of young moms … they don’t form an outlet for themselves before their husbands deploy. So, they feel kind of lost during that deployment, ” said Holly Paulsboe, the military case manager for the Child Crisis Center.
s a military wife herself, she said she understands some of the stresses that come with a military lifestyle.
“The majority of the ones that we see don’t have any family and they don’t have any friends,” said Paulsboe.
The Child Crisis Center offers respite care for stressed military families – a place where they can leave their children for a few days.
Family support services are also available on post to troops and their families in coping with family separations.
“With the amount of people we have coming in, our cases have increased, ” said Diana Lopez with Child Protective Services.
Lopez said the state agency first tries to work with the families.
“A lot of our military are on their second and first tour,” Lopez said. “So when they’re coming back there is an issue of PTSD of domestic violence, those are the types of issues that were seeing.”
Lopez said the last option is to put children in foster care.
”So, we have to utilize the Child Crisis Center or their unit or their neighbors to assist them temporarily until we can make sure that whatever was going on is not an issue anymore,” Lopez said. “In our civilian population we’re blessed to have relatives and grandparents that can assist us, well, their family’s not here.”
On post, the Army’s family advocacy center and community services offers support groups and parenting and anger management classes. You can also call the Child Crisis Center at 562-7955.
