Tomorrow I am getting on a plane, something I have dreaded doing for many years, especially after 9/11– I have a phobia about planes, but I am doing this for my son. I want him to get the best medical care available and I will not settle for second-rate.

AutismOne is a conference put on in Chicago each year, headed up by Teri Arranga and her husband Ed. It features a collaboration of doctors and medical professionals who come from all over the world to share their scientific and medical knowledge related to autism. This year the Keynote Speaker for the conference is Robert F Kennedy Jr. A congressional panel will be held as well.

Teri and Ed are invested in the Autism community. They have two young men on the spectrum.  Teri is also the editor of Autism Science Digest, a magazine chock- full of autism science articles that you will not find on the waiting room table at your local Military Treatment Facility.

The families I’ve met during my autism journey have given me hope that my son will recover from the disabling aspects of autism.  They have given me inspiration to keep going when I just feel like throwing in the towel and giving up. I have many doctors and moms that I want to meet.

What do I want to learn as a parent of a child with autism? What do I hope to gain from AutismOne? I no longer view Autism as something that can solved with a magic bullet. I am not looking for that. I am looking for strategies of treatments that will compliment my son’s recovery progress.

I know that autism recovery for many is not a sprint, but a marathon. It’s just the starting line for some, the half-way point for others, and the finish for those that have been successful in getting their ASD child’s health back on track.

My child’s gut is being healed by steroids. I am thankful for modern medicine and feel the medical professionals at this conference have some great perspectives for how to help your child to improve in cognition, and be relieved of chronic constipation and diarrhea. I truly believe they care.

If you’re attending the event I would love to meet you and share your story. Unfortunately, there are many military parents who cannot attend this five-day conference. Perhaps, mom is gone on a deployment overseas, or dad is TDY for training. I’m traveling a long way to get there myself.

As a military wife, I can say being away from family is isolating; it must be how my husband feels when he deploys.

If you cannot attend the conference, there are many presentations that have listed PDF slides for viewing at home. Online slides are the backbone of many Army family training events, so I know there will be many that can relate to education slides. You can view the schedule here.

Take some time even if you can attend, and read some of the PDF slides. You might find something worth pursuing to help your child. I know I haven’t been able to attend conferences in the past, but I was able to gather information from the previous ones to be able to get my son auditory integration training, and take him to see a neurologist who specializes in hemisphere weakness. And yes, he did accept TRICARE.

I believe if you want your child to get better, you do have to do some work. It’s hard, but worth it. This week I will be working to help my son, but also to bring other military families valuable insight into what they can do to help their child.

We were lucky. Some are not. There is nothing that makes us better parents than those of Owen, Mikaela, and Drew. It was sheer luck that Abbi made it. We have to have a team of people to help make sure Abbi doesn’t wander every moment of every day. It can happen to any family who has a child with Autism, no matter how careful you are.

Abbi was 2 years old. Two friends of mine and I had gone to a small craft store in our home town. In the back room was a playroom for kids to play in while parents shopped.

There was one door outside and Abbi would have had to sneak past four adults standing between the play room and the front door to escape. We thought she was safe, and playing happily.

Suddenly, I realized I didn’t hear her playing. I went to check the playroom and she wasn’t there. I checked the bathroom (she loves water). I checked under all the craft tables, and around the room. Nothing. The last place I would have thought she could have gone is outside, but there were no other options.

No one saw her go out the door; four adults between her and the door, and no one saw.

My heart was racing and I ran outside, calling her name.

Just as I went out, I saw a stranger scooping her up out of a busy four-lane road. The stranger wouldn’t hand her back to me, telling me that I should lose my rights as her parent for not paying attention to where she was. I cried, and yelled, and my friends came to back me up and make sure that I got my daughter back. I don’t remember what happened after I got her in my arms except that I cried and shook and held her tighter than ever.

I still feel guilt about that day. How could I have known? We had done everything we could to prepare for making sure she was OK, safe, happy. Somehow she sneaked past four adults and a heavy door with a bell on it. I don’t know how she did it to this day, but she did.

This was our first wandering experience with Abbi girl; one tragedy missed only by luck and the help of an intervening stranger–someone who bravely saved and defended my daughter when she couldn’t help herself.

Today is Armed Forces Day, a national day to recognize the honor and sacrifice by all members of America’s military.

Whether you have served one day in the military or you personify a lifetime of service, today is for you. America is grateful for your service.

For our military members who have a family member with autism, you serve above and beyond, and deserve an extra salute.

This day have been around almost as long as the Department of Defense. It was originally announced by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson on August 31, 1949. The recognition of all our armed forces replaced individual Army, Navy and Air Force Days and was signified unification of all services under the recently created Department of Defense.

President Harry Truman announced the official day on Feb. 27, 1950, through a proclamation stating, “Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America’s defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the goal of readiness for any eventuality. It is the first parade of preparedness by the unified forces of our land, sea, and air defense.”

Service to our country can be difficult in itself. For many the days are long, tough and stressful. The moves, requirements and being on call 24 hours a day, every day is part of the military lifestyle.

The military members go through a lot, and it takes a lot out of you. Many members have security clearances that pre-empt any discussion of how work actually was. Often the military member has to hold back on a lot of stresses, especially in a deployed environment, as to not concern the family back on the homefront.

When you have to deploy at a moment’s notice and leave your family behind, you miss out on life. Not just the birthdays, holidays and weekend outings, but the simple things that most people take for granted, such as a smile, having dinner together and living life.

This is especially difficult if your child has autism. You cannot be there for supporting them and if something really goes wrong, you are half a world away.

The other 99 percent of our nation’s citizens have no idea how hard it is to do some of the things our families do. But they are supportive of your role, regardless or politics or perspective on war.

On this 63rd celebration of your service, enjoy your day.

Mother’s Day is a special opportunity to recognize the importance of moms in our society.

But today is about more than just celebrating motherhood for our Autism community.

Simply put to all our mothers out there, today is a day to honor your commitment and sacrifice.

You are a mother. You are a warrior for your children.

Being part of a military society, the term warrior is often associated with the lifestyle of service. This is you in more ways that you know.

You fight, you face the challenges that families not in the military might not appreciate and you are what make today’s military family function.

Whether serving on active duty, Guardsman or Reservist, or as the critical role of Commander in Chief della casa, you play a crucial role in keeping the family as a cohesive unit.

There are so many facets to your service: deployments, exercises, TDYs, permanent change of station moves, operational necessity, and being the rock for others. You are at the center of all these, regardless of whether you wear the uniform or not. The work may feel unappreciated, but you are very much appreciated.

The mother warrior deals with all the above, with life and and something more. There is Autism Spectrum Disorder and perhaps other challenges as a special needs parent.

To all of you who never back down and never give up, the community salutes you. You are the brave, the inspiring and the ones who are changing the world.

You are part of the military community, yet different. You are part of the Autism community, yet different. You are a Mother Warrior and deserve recognition for all you do through the tough fight to set your children up for success in this tough world.

This is no slight to the dads, who celebrate a day of their own next month, but every one of them are most likely to give the credit to the mom. It’s important to note that on our Facebook page 80.8 percent ( up from 80 percent last year) of the over 3,400 community members are women. While all might not be mothers, a large proportion of the commenters on our daily questions, posts and interactions are.

It’s these mother warriors asking the questions no one wants to answer to find a solution that doesn’t exist for children on the autism spectrum. These mother warriors are persistent and showing the true love they have for their children by never, never, never giving up.

Thank you moms for keeping up the fight  in our war on autism. Together we can make a difference!

Whether caring to admit it or not, everyone who has every attended school has been impacted by a teach in some fashion.

If you’re in the first category, you might be interested that today is National Teacher Appreciation Day and May 6-10 is National Teacher Appreciation Week.

While the day is a general recognition of the great teachers who have changed lives, it also needs to serve as an opportunity to say thanks to all the teachers who have made a difference for our family members with autism spectrum disorder.

Think for a moment of all the people in your child’s life who have gone the extra mile for them. Ask yourself this: what teacher, or teachers, do you appreciate, and why?

There’s a lot of people who can fit the role of a teacher outside of the normal school structure. For instance, would you consider your ABA therapist a teacher? How about the speech therapist, special education team lead, or other person who works directly with your child? In a special education environment, even an aide can act in the form of a teacher, providing vital feedback and encouragement to the student.

Today is a great chance to reflect on those who have served in a teaching capacity and made a difference. Take the time to give thanks to those who will make such a difference in your child’s future, or have in yours.

To our surprise American Military Families Autism Support was again recognized for the important role it plays in supporting military families dealing with autism spectrum disorder.

AMFAS was recognized in two different platforms this year– for both Facebook and the Blog selections. AMFAS was highlighted as No.5 overall among an incredible list of Facebook pages. See the list here.

In 2012, AMFAS was awarded No. 1 Autism Facebook page.

This year, AMFAS received rankings in a number of different categories:

• #3 Most Informative
• #4 Most Supportive
• #4 Best for Activism
• #5 Best Overall
• #9 Therapy and Education

“What’s awesome about these awards is that it’s a reflection on our great community of military families, working together to make a difference,” said Nicholas Sabula, AMFAS founder.

Babble.com also recognized AMFAS for its blog site featuring a collection of military family blogs. Visit the site to the award here.

An email from Babble editors read, “In honor of Autism Awareness Month, Babble rounded up the Top 30 Autism Spectrum Blogs of 2013 – and yours was selected among them! Whether providing parents of autistic children with inspirational words, or giving young people living with the disorder a place to go for support, your blog serves as a reminder that they are not alone – and for that, we are grateful.”

In addition to being listed among the top 5 autism blogs for 2013, it was also recognized in the following categories:

• #1 For Parents of Teens
• #10 From Dad’s Perspective

“What’s unique about this effort is that it’s main objective is to highlight and promote the incredible work of our community members, who are telling the stories of military life and autism,” Sabula said.

See the full listing of the Top 30 Autism Blogs of 2013 here.

Any military family with a blog related to autism is welcome to add their blog by simply emailing their blog information (with owner’s approval to list it) to blogs@amfas.org or by filling out this online form.

AMFAS was started in 2008 with the mission of providing news, information, community and support to all military families dealing with autism spectrum disorder. Visit AMFAS.org for more information on how to get involved.

 I am an Army wife and mother of four. My husband and I are stationed in Fort Lewis, Wash., and we have one daughter, age 5, and three sons, ages 2, 4, and 9. All of our boys have autism. My husband has been in the Army for about three years now and during that time we not only faced the hardships of adjusting to this new lifestyle, but we were hit with the reality that there is definitely a genetic component to autism.

My oldest son was already diagnosed years ago, but in the last 18 months we have faced the diagnosis of our other two boys. I really wanted to find support here, and I found it extremely challenging trying to balance my busy life with trying to meet more families like mine locally.

There was also the constant battle of explaining the special needs of my children whenever we were in public. I decided to throw myself into increasing the network of parents here at Joint Base Lewis McChord and I began leading a parent support group that meets monthly at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma. The group has rapidly increased in size, but the majority was civilian families. This is where the concept for the autism walk began. I wanted to create an event that would draw families like mine out and give them an opportunity to connect with their community, share their story, and increase awareness locally in support of their children with Autism.

I proposed the idea to my husband’s unit, the 593rd Sustainment Brigade. I was astounded by their willingness to jump on the idea and help me make it a great success! They helped me access rentals from the MWR and gave me a staff of volunteer soldiers to help run the eight booths which offered resources, food, and yard games.

The best way I could think to really have a visual impact at the event and allow families to in some way share their story was to create the signs. I collected information from EFMP and the school district and determined that 150 signs would be a good approximation of the number of school age children here and around JBLM diagnosed with Autism. I thought I was aiming too high, but amazingly nearly 70 families contacted me wanting their children’s names on signs! I collected photos and names of all the children and the remaining signs bore the “1 in 88” statistic that was released at that time by the CDC as the risk for autism. (Since the event, this number has changed to 1 in 55 I believe).

Now the challenge I faced was creating a successful event that could entertain a large number of people, with no money. I got creative and made a few calls. Families helped spread the word and small $3-$5 donations showed up here and there, but the greatest help came from some local stores that donated some of the supplies or discounted them for me. Home Depot donated 150 long paint sticks to mount the signs, and Joanne Fabric never batted an eye when I came in there with 20 printed coupons!

One by one I put the signs together, created two large banners, and 22 large signs with facts about autism that were posted along the route of the walk. I had some amazing volunteers help me when they were able, but by April 1 my living room was taken over!

It was a constant emotional roller coaster preparing this event. I was so happy to connect with all the families that participated and every time I felt overwhelmed and wanted to quit, my email would ring with a new child’s photo and I would be reminded of why this was so important.

The day of the event was amazing. I was able to coordinate with the developmental pediatrics staff at Madigan and have Dr. Geneman speak at our event. We also had representatives from Air Force EFMP, Army EFMP, and the commander of the 593^rd address our audience about the impact of autism, how families can find support, and how our community can support us.

I spoke on behalf of the families and shared a bit about my story.

After the walk I was in tears. There were parents who came and thanked me for sharing my story and felt they were represented well.

This event was a great success and I hope I will be here next year to push for another one in April 2014!

Thanks to Carolina for sending us this interesting Infographic (graphic courtesy of www.nursedegree.net)

Have an autism or special needs support group with no connection to AMFAS? We want to help you.

Since being started in 2008, American Military Families Autism Support has had a keen focus of trying to provide help and support to military families stationed at any location worldwide through our grassroots efforts.

The truth is that there are a ton of installations and communities out there and lots of families are still finding out about what we offer.

Since 2010 we’ve been working to expand our AMFAS Groups program, locally-run autism support communities with the common AMFAS theme and standards. AMFAS currently has 36 local support communities for military families dealing with autism. However, there are a lot of installations where either an AMFAS Group hasn’t been established since a local sponsor hasn’t requested to start one or that AMFAS found there is currently adequate support available at the installation by another group.

There are incredible established groups out there who are already providing support and information to military families in their areas.

Our mandate here is trying to ensure that when a military family moves from place to place, that there is a good hand off. As military families, not a corporation, AMFAS team members understand this. We’re in your shoes too.

With lots of groups being stood up, there is still a lack of information about what is available at what location. We’d like to fix that and help these groups support and contribute to our national effort.

Because of this AMFAS started the AMFAS Affiliate Program, meant to help improve an already broad support network for military families located worldwide.

Any group supporting families with autism or other special need is able to join. The benefits of this are obvious: affiliated groups gain access to support from AMFAS and are included in our Affiliated Groups listing, a subset of our Groups listing to help support non-AMFAS efforts.

By becoming an affiliate, groups are provided opportunities to network and access support content in the AMFAS network. They are part of a military autism coalition. Non-autism groups are also welcome to join the affiliated network and will be listed in the Worldwide Installation Resource or other locations on the AMFAS website.

Outside community groups interested in joining the AMFAS Affiliate Program must agree to some basic terms such as military family focused and must respect all member’s perspectives on care. Non-military groups are welcome to affiliate with AMFAS, with the understanding that our focus is the military family.

Groups can become official AMFAS groups at any time by agreeing to our standardized terms of support. For more information, simply send us a note to groups@amfas.org to get started or visit the AMFAS Affiliate page.

Do you or someone you know have an autism or non-autism support group? Why not become part of our AMFAS Affiliate Program. Our focus is  http://amfas.org/community/affiliate-program

The Data

For weeks, I culled through the data, reading through it over and over and, when the time came, commencing the gritty task of actually analyzing the data.

The task consumed me.  Sleep eluded me.  I forgot to eat.  All I could think about was the data.  The words of the families came to life, I could hear their voices, see their images and, all too often, felt their pain and struggles.

At one time in my life, we were an EFMP family.  It was difficult.  Five posts in eight years, all east of Interstate 81, allowed me plenty of time to get to know EFMP rules, regulations, policies and failures.  Jack was diagnosed at Fort Bragg in 2003 with autism, we left the Army recently out of Fort Myer EFMP.  Fort Bragg to Fort Drum to Carlisle Barracks to Fort Bragg to Fort Myer. . . .I look back at them now and remember each and every EFMP person.  Fort Bragg was the best the second time around (they still get my award for BEST EVER EVER EVER!). . . .Fort Drum. . .worst ever. . . Fort Myer. . . .first joint base. . . .Carlisle Barracks. . . .so small, made life so easy.  But, if I look at each one of them, we were at different points in our lives, too, and now, that is part of the story.  And, as I examined the data and began the process of placing it into context, I could see why those labels were so easy to assign.

In other words, as I performed the analysis, I could clearly see the multidimensionality of both sides of the EFMP problem is what makes it a nearly insurmountable challenge for DoD, for EFMP families and providers.

Services and the Exceptional Family Member Program

EFMP, believe it or not, is a service offered to all service members by the Department of Defense.  Being enrolled in EFMP is a bit like buying insurance. . . .turns out you might need it, but if you have to use it, the news is probably not good for you.  And that last part is what makes it an “undesirable” service for so many service members.

For a very long time, service members lived with the perception that enrolling a family member into the Exceptional Family Member Program meant that their military career was in jeopardy.  Given that an EFMP designation could possibly impact future assignments, PCS moves or promotions, service members viewed enrollment warily.  Unfortunately, if you or your child needed to be enrolled in order to receive necessary behavioral, educational or medical services, EFMP was a “mandated” option.

As a service, though, wanted or not, there are some principles in play that cannot be ignored.  First, services are intangible, inseparable, heterogeneous, and perishable.  In the world of EFMP, here is what those principles mean.

When you engage with anyone from EFMP, what do you get? And, when I ask you, “what do you get?” I mean, physically, what do you get?

1.  Paperwork:  lots and lots of paperwork.  Do you understand it?  Is it easy to read?  Do you know what to do with it?  Were directions provided?  Pictures?

2.  When you go to their office, is there a place to sit down?  If my experience with EFMP (or any agency on a military post or base, for that matter) is any indication, the chairs are uncomfortable, unmovable (as if I would even consider taking them with me), the coffee is cold, old and tasteless (if there at all), brochures offer little to no meaning, and the television is tuned to some channel with a sign indicating that the channel is not to be touched without assistance.  Am I close?

Intangibility is inevitable with services:  it exists along a continuum from absolutely no physicality present to physical goods accompanied by some level of service (simplest example is dinner at a restaurant: food with service attached).  But without a physical product, or some indication of it, how can you evaluate how well it is working?  What does this have to do with comfortable chairs, paperwork and ambience?  More than you would think.  People need physical contact with even the most intangible services.  Why do you think so many businesses give out pens, calendars, crazy stress balls with the names of their businesses stamped on them?  Tangibility.  I’m not suggesting that pens and calendars are the path to connecting with EFMP (although, stress relief balls may work), but there are many ways in which the first contact with the program can be more comfortable, welcoming, warm.  Because, chances are, if you are there, your life is already tough enough.  Tangibility becomes especially important because it is impossible to know if an intangible service is working.  But when it fails to work, you know it and you are mad.

Inseparability is the source of much that can go wrong with any service and EFMP is no different.  Unlike the iPhone I purchased this past weekend, with a service I am actually present in the production of the service.  Watching Jack and Ellie getting their hair cut this past weekend, I had to participate (as did they) by suggesting to the stylist how much should be cut.  In the case of Jack, I had to quickly train the stylist how to deal with an autistic boy who hates to have his hair cut.  I also had to teach my children how to engage with the stylist:  sit still, don’t argue over hair length (that would be Ellie), let her know if the water it too hot or too cold.

With EFMP, you are also part of the service production while simultaneously consuming the service.  How many times have you moved to a new post, arrived at EFMP to reset your respite care and found that you didn’t have the correct information, had somehow lost a referral or were told that you had zero chance of receiving ABA services in the next thirty days?  Retracing your steps, you remember that you did everything the same way you had at your previous post.  You knew the routine and had followed the blue print.  Still, you had come up empty-handed.

If this has happened to you, you can partially blame the service failure on the inseparability principle.  In order to arrive at a satisfactory solution encounter, both parties must participate equally in the production and the consumption of the service.  Lack of knowledge about how to participate sets the family up for failure.  One of the key themes from the data dealt with this problem.  Not only was there no consistency in the application of the EFMP policies across the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, active duty, guard and reserve units, but there was a clear lack of consistency between posts and bases, making things like PCSing a nightmare that seemed to have no end.

Heterogeneity is the third principle that comes into play when we look at the challenges we face with EFMP.  Anyone who has been touched by the military has argued against the “cookie cutter” approach so often taken by any type of programming available for families.  Even within the same offices, families enrolled in the problem often find it is difficult to get the same answer from more than two people twice.  Consistently, the heterogeneity of the EFMP employees, across services, posts/bases, and even within offices, showed through the data enough to suggest that most encounters were not only difficult, but acted in such a way as to create negative expectations for any future encounters.  Creating negative expectations had a profound effect on the interactions between families and service providers, often leading to a downward spiral where any possibility of service salvage went out the door.

Finally, all services are perishable.  They have zero shelf life.  Can’t use them today?  They can’t be saved until tomorrow.

At first look, the perishability of services seems less impactful on the entire EFMP program than the other principles.  Yet, the size of the enrollment at the larger posts (Bragg, Hood, Lewis, Schofield Barracks, Military District of Washington, all Army, but it’s my perspective. . . .happy to take insight about other services, see email address above) all mean that you have volumes of people needing access to a very finite number of EFMP employees.  Many types of service industries have ways to manage the perishability factor.  Airlines use yield management pricing:  fly off-peak hours, typically, fly cheaper.  Plan your flights far in advance, airfares are lower.  In other words, airlines can motivate you to commit to filling their seats by altering price, something they have determined to be important in your decision-making process.

But what about EFMP?  What control do they have over managing your demand for the finite number of hours they can provide?  Think about it this way:  when is EFMP busiest?  During PCS season.  When, typically, do most families PCS?  Spring, summer. . . .maybe early fall. . .sometimes over the holidays.  Is there anything EFMP can do to increase the hours of the day that they work?  No, but they could increase their man hours per day by having more of their employees focused on PCS types of activities or asking for their higher headquarters to staff them more heavily during those seasons.

What happens when you go to the EFMP office?  Your first signal is to “sign in.”  From my experience, I would rather have my eyes ripped out of my head than try to sit with my son waiting for ANY length of time for a meeting.  Could I possibly avoid this situation?  Sure, as part of the service production, I could leave him home. . .but, wait. . .I am new to the post, I know no one to watch my special needs child, my husband has already signed in to his unit and is already working and, oh yea, the whole reason I am AT the EFMP office is to set up respite care.  Is there any solution to this problem?  There is, but it takes an out of the box approach and the first step is acknowledging that perishability is the elephant in the room and how are you going to work around that.

In the end, the longer I wait, the more frustrated I become, the more likely my child will act out, the shorter my fuse.  Equate that with my counterpart with whom I am going to be meeting once I finally reach the hallowed halls of the EFMP office.  I am probably the fifth or sixth person to show up in the office today.  Chances are that I am missing at least one piece of my paperwork, not because I intended to do so, but I didn’t need it at my last post, so it never occurred to me that I would need it at this post.  The closer to lunch, give or take an hour, the EFMP rep is going to either be starving and I am the person standing between her and lunch or she has just come back and the phone call she received over lunch from the school where her OWN child attends has told her that her evening is going to be spent doing something other than taking care of herself.  She is in no mood to be berated, you are in no mood to be told “no” and, before you know it, what could have been a fairly good start to a working relationship has become a throw down with names and ranks being dropped everywhere in sight.  She has heard it before.  You have said it before.  You threaten to go to the chain of command.  She is already thinking about the phone call she is going to get from someone tomorrow.

After reading thousands of responses, I can readily tell you, this is how it starts.

I can also tell you that it doesn’t have to end that way.

The data I analyzed exposed many themes about the EFMP equation:  families, providers, leadership, challenges, outcomes.  Thanks to this data, I have a story to tell.  Thanks to twenty plus years of studying, researching and  teaching Marketing and Services at top universities across the United States, I have context in which to place this data that offers perspective and recommendations for a way to approach some of these challenges.  With my partners, a five-stage study program has been developed. . . . if the leadership is willing to listen.  They’ve been told.  This information and these recommendations were presented in December 2012 to military leadership in Washington, DC, so they have been told.  Whether they choose to listen is the question.

In the end, though, here is what came out. . . .after reading thousands of responses from over 500 respondents who came from all ranks (full disclosure:  no respondents in the study indicated that they held a rank of O7 or above), all services, posts and bases across the country, with different reasons for being enrolled in EFMP. . . who were Active Duty, Reservists, National Guard, retirees, caregivers, spouses, Service Members, or enrollees themselves, here is one general theme that emerged over and over and OVER again:

EFMP demonstrates no consistency across services, across posts/bases, across states, communities and ranks.  The vocabulary used to describe exceptional family members changes across the different services, the accessibility to programs are a function of the environment outside the control of the Department of Defense.  Reworking EFMP is going to need more than a change of resourcing, it is going to need a significant paradigm shift.  Until then, nothing can really change at all.