Date of Award
Spring 4-9-2019
Document Type
Project (696 or 796 registration)
Degree Name
Master of Science in Counseling
Department
Graduate Studies
Committee Chair
Dr. Ken Messina
Keywords
military, deployment, counseling group, children, Child Centered Group Play Therapy
Abstract
This group manual was created for children in military families who are currently experiencing a parent being gone due to military deployment. The creation of this counseling group is supported by the literature, Russo & Fallon (2015), found that military children face unique stressors compared to civilian children. Guzman (2014) shows that the numbers of children who live in a military family with at least one parent being a military member, is 1.7 million children in the United States. This proves that this is a large population that need its own unique services to meet their unique life stressors and life experiences. This author has found a gap in the literature as to the effects of multiple relocations and parent deployment on a child’s externalized behavior, literature favors behavioral concerns and resiliency. It is this author’s belief that even with this literary gap, early intervention is beneficial. This group manual was created to serve children aged five to six years-old to provide them with emotion identification, coping skills, a new support system, and to provide materials that are specific to their current experience in a developmentally appropriate manner. Child-Centered Group Play Therapy (CCGPT) is the theoretical base for this group manual. Wilson and Ray (2018) found that play therapy is easily modified to be developmentally appropriate and is also a multicultural model. This was created as a group model based on Guzman (2014), who reported that group sessions model family cohesion which is beneficial to this population.
Recommended Citation
Hayes, Rosa, "Military Deployment- A Counseling Group for Children" (2019). Dissertations, Theses, and Projects. 161.
https://red.mnstate.edu/thesis/161