Exploring the role of social ties for well-being in adolescent children from serving military families

Children of active serving military personnel are a niche population under unique psychosocial conditions having unique concerns relating to their emotional health and well-being. While there has been vast research on military personnel and their health outcomes the children of said personnel have received relatively little research interest. Research on this population can help understand the unique factors and experiences that inform potential interventions to promote physical and psychological health. How changes in social relationships might relate to adverse events in the child's environment. This proposed PhD comprises three studies. First, a feasibility study to understand any barriers in how social network (SN) data collection tools can be used with adolescent children from serving military families. Second, an 18-month longitudinal study investigating the changes of the participants' social networks, emotional health, and well-being. And finally, a mixed method consolidation study to get overall opinion of the usage and efficacy of the SN data collection tools. The findings will be disseminated to academic, public and organization audiences. This interdisciplinary research project will benefit organizational bodies (e.g., charities, schools) focusing on this population, and will lay the foundation for developing methods to instil greater resilience in children of military personnel.