Kids Care, Too – Addressing the Challenges Facing America’s Hidden Helpers

As the Elizabeth Dole Foundation joins the nation in commemorating Month of the Military Child, we want to revisit what we have discovered about military caregiver kids since launching our Hidden Helpers Coalition and provide an update on the Coalition’s work.??

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When the Foundation first sparked the military caregiver movement more than a decade ago, our immediate goal was to directly respond to the most urgent challenges of our caregivers. Our nation had overlooked their sacrifices for generations. In nearly every facet of their lives, many of America’s more than 5.5 million caregivers had reached their breaking point. ?

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As we set out to address this crisis, we quickly discovered that adult caregivers were not the only ones struggling. The overwhelming responsibility of caregiving was cascading through families, impacting even the youngest children. At the time, parents were hesitant to discuss the effect caregiving was having on their kids. Some struggled with guilt over the impossible decisions they made every day, prioritizing their veteran’s care or their child’s need for parental attention. Other caregivers simply felt pained and helpless over the changes they were seeing in their families.??

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Silvia Lopez, a Dole Caregiver Fellow from Delaware, was one of those caregivers who witnessed the toll caregiving was taking on her children. Silvia’s husband Alex had witnessed the worst scenes of war as a mortuary affairs specialist. His deployments left him with post-traumatic stress (PTS), a traumatic brain injury (TBI), agoraphobia, vertigo, and skin conditions from his exposure to chemicals. ?

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Silvia manages his care 24 hours a day, but at times, it’s too much to take on alone. That’s when their five kids step up. Their oldest children help take Alex to his doctor’s appointments and watch over their siblings. The younger kids do what they can to help their dad around the house. They all work together to soothe his mood when he’s having a tough day. The impact of the situation has been hard on their children. They have each attended therapy and have struggled socially since their mom can’t leave their dad, and their dad can’t go to crowded places. At the same time, Silvia has seen her children develop a kindness, maturity, and empathy far beyond their peers (and many adults, too).??

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In support of families like Silvia’s, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation expanded its work to include military caregiver kids—America’s hidden helpers. In 2021, we released the first comprehensive study ever conducted with military caregiver children and adolescents by research firm Mathematica, with the support of our partners, Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). The results of the study—Hidden Helpers at the Frontlines of Caregiving —presented an urgent call to action. The experience of Silvia and Alex’s children was re-occurring in military and veteran homes across the nation and the families had few places to turn to for assistance.??

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The study’s key findings included:?

• Approximately 2.3 million children under the age of 18 live with a disabled veteran. ?
• Caregiver kids experience high levels of disruption in their lives, resulting in elevated levels of distress. This distress can severely impact their emotional and psychological development. ?
• Caregiver kids often have difficulties expressing their complicated emotions and can have trouble learning in school. ?
• Parents who are caregivers are often forced to sacrifice their time with their kids in order to tend to the overwhelming needs of the injured veteran.???
• Caregiver kids often suffer many of the same hardships as their caregiver parents, such as social isolation and health problems related to stress, burnout, and fatigue. Many of these problems are made worse by the fear that their situation will be misunderstood by their community.?
• At that same time, caregiver kids take pride in helping their families. As anyone who has been around these kids knows, these hidden helpers demonstrate extraordinary love, compassion, patience, and understanding.???

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The Foundation teamed with WWP and the Biden Administration’s Joining Forces to build the Hidden Helpers Coalition, which calls on partners to pledge actions that fill gaps in services for military caregiver kids and youth. As an immediate response to Mathematica’s findings, the coalition committed to over 40 new programs and initiatives to better support military and veteran families. That list has only grown, as more than 80 organizations have joined the mission.?

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The big headline of our Coalition’s work is that we directly served more than 5,000 hidden helpers in the first year since the study’s release.??

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At the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, in addition to co-chairing the Coalition, we are focused on rolling out new support?initiatives. Late last year, we joined History Channel and A&E Networks to launch the first-ever 'Untold Story Challenge,' a new storytelling initiative aimed at amplifying the stories of hidden helpers. Through writing, drawing, film, and photography, hidden helpers from across the country were able to share their stories and see themselves in the stories of others.??

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The Foundation is also working with one of the top experts on child caregivers to develop the first instrument for assessing and identifying young people who are acting as caregivers. We envision this instrument being used by clinicians, mental health providers, teachers, and other professionals and organizations directly serving military youth. By providing practitioners and advocates with this tool, we hope to reduce the isolation of young caregivers, connect with them earlier to get ahead of any negative outcomes of caregiving, and deliver resources more efficiently.???

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Additionally, in partnership with WWP, we’re producing a first-of-its-kind Family Resource Hub that will make the process of finding support faster and easier than ever. ?

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We are organizing the impact?of our?coalition around four working groups, as recommended by the Mathematica study:?

1. Clinical Transformation - Transforming the culture of pediatric and primary care to better identify, communicate, empower, and support caregiving children, youth, and young adults.??

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2. Education - Pursuing the identification of caregiver children and youth across primary and secondary educational institutions and equipping administrators, staff, and educators with the knowledge and tools to address the unique learning needs of hidden helpers.??

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3. Impact & Measurement - Creating uniform measures and expected outcomes informed by program design and implementation, reflective of best practices.??

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4. Peer Support - Identifying and promoting best practices in peer-to-peer programming to foster greater well-being and thriving skills in caregiving children and families.??

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If you, or your organization, have expertise, experience, or resources to share in these areas, please join us. You can connect with us directly at [email protected].?

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Month of the Military Child is a great time to make a year-round commitment to America’s hidden helpers.??

-Steve Schwab, CEO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation