The Comfort Crew for Military Kids

Mission: The Comfort Crew for Military Kids provides proven resources to help military kids and their family connect and build resiliency in the face of extraordinary challenges.

Vision: Create a world where all communities understand, nurture, and care for the needs of our military children.

Goal of the Program:
1. Ensure that all Military Kids with deployed parents have the necessary tools to cope with their parent's deployment and the reintegration following an extended separation.
2. Ensure that military kids and families are informed about the difficulties faced during and after deployment and are prepared to not just survive but to thrive in spite of those difficulties.

Resources housed in Comfort Kits for military children ages 6-12 are distributed directly to families. Eligible families are given the opportunity to enroll in one CCMK's programs online through the CCMK resource portal. Once a family fills out the request form and they have been verified as a military child in the target age range, they are mailed the requested Comfort Kit. The enrolled family receive three automated emails: Comfort Kit is on the way, Kit effectiveness survey 45 days after request, and opportunity to request follow up resource 30 days after return date from deployment. Bulk orders for deployment events are taken individually over the phone or via email.

CCMK presents the With You All the Way! Tour featuring Trevor Romain. The With You All the Way Tour format is customized to reflect the developmental needs, interests, level of sophistication, and subjects that appeal to age/grade of the audience. The presentation is 1 hour 15 minutes and travels to Elementary and Middle Schools around the world, on and near US military installations, and includes the following:

The Core Message - 25 Minutes
Trevor shares personal, heartfelt stories from his lifetime spent working with youth. He builds trust and rapport with his unique brand of humor. Challenges like frequent moves, deployment, and reintegration are introduced and discussed alongside issues like bullying, friendships, and making good choices.

The Movie - 25 Minutes
Following the Core Message, students view an animated video from Trevor's award-winning PBS series. The videos will speak to kids in their own language and will extend information on issues pertinent to military and non-military students, normalize the experiences growing up in a military family, and connect youth with each other through animated characters.

Interactive Session - 25 Minutes
Led by Trevor, this integral part of the presentation allows youth to participate in a discussion and express their feelings, fears, and concerns in a safe environment. Trevor wraps up the presentation with positive messages of support and encouragement and reinforces the healthy coping strategies the students have learned.

CCMK co-founders and leadership staff are all military connected and have firsthand experience with both the extraordinary opportunities as well as difficult life challenges that come with growing up in a military family. We believe deeply that it is our duty to rise to the occasion and provided the critical support military kids need.

CCMK has distributed about 300,000 Comfort Kits since 2010. In addition, we have sold about 0,000 kits to other partner organizations. Since July 2013, we have received 800 request orders for resources through our online family portal that have been funded through CCMK sponsorships and donations. We have collected output and outcome data for those kits shipped.

Through our partnership with The Trevor Romain Company, a children's educational media group, CCMK is the rare exception where school districts provide access to students during the instructional day. The tour presentation has been seen by over 350,000 students during the past 10 years. This privilege makes us uniquely qualified to offer an assembly that promotes open communication, self-reflection, and dialogue that will help military kids develop lifelong skills to build resiliency. The program goals include:
• Help military kids, their families and schools develop positive channels of communication.
• Acknowledge the common stressors and emotions associated with growing up in a military family
• Promoting emotional health with strategies to express emotions in a meaningful way
• Maintaining positive friendships and support outside of the family
• Strategies for families to communicate complex feelings.
• Ensure that all school age military kids learn how to process and cope with the challenges of military life, and speak up for themselves when they need help from an adult.
• Connect with military children all over the world through shared experience.
• Create a safe place where military kids can share their feelings and talk about their unique experiences.

Indirectly, the program will contribute to supporting military families as a whole and increases levels of family stability during sustained separations, deployment, reintegration, and injuries.

1. The 2013 Launch of the Military Web portal has allowed us to collect information on families receiving our resources and has made our resources more accessible to military families, especially the National Guard, Reserve and Veteran populations.
When the Military Family Webportal was launched in 2013, the verification process of requiring an additional email limited the number of people who requested kits from receiving them. CCMK was able to identify this problem due to families either mistaking the additional email as a confirmation email and/or not realizing additional action was required. CCMK revised the request form to include all verification questions and was able to eliminate a second actions from being required, increasing the number of eligible families who received the kits to 100%. Another issue was underestimating the shipping cost for individual kits. While shipping in bulk to deployment kits runs around $2.50 per kit, shipping directly to families was much higher. In March 2015, CCMK was approved for a CPP discounted rate through USPS. CCMK has been able to cut costs in half by processing and scheduling volunteers to pack kits in the CCMK office every Friday morning.

2. In 2013, CCMK began to interview military kids and families on the topic of reintegration. The Comfort Crew held a Symposium in DC for expert panelist to discuss reintegration and react to vignettes from the interviews, In 201, CCMK developed and began distributing the Together Again! Helping Military Families Reconnect Kit to help families with reintegration after a time of separation due to deployment. This resource is now available on the CCMK Military Family Web portal.

3. The Bringing Families Back Together Deployment Pilot Program was launched in fall 2014 with funding from the CCMK annual fundraiser, Boots and Birdies Charity Classic. Training educators and counselors working with military kids, along with the donation of CCMK resources has increased our reach to more families. During the first four training sessions, CCMK worked with two groups that included educators, parents, and kids and two group that did not include kids. While all four sessions were successful, CCMK was able to learn differences and how to adjust the presentation accordingly. Since the initial pilot program, CCMK has received three grants to expand the pilot program to Abilene and San Antonio.

4. The With You All the Way! Tour expanded to middle school students. A new age-appropriate animated movie was created and is shown during those tour presentations as well as a new resource pack.