A Bioecological Model of Deployment Risk and Resilience

Abstract

A deployment risk and resilience model is proposed to describe military service and deployment-related factors influencing post-deployment reintegration and post-deployment behavioral health. Adapted from the resiliency model, it is a multiphasic framework consistent with biopsychosocial and strengths-based perspectives by focusing on vulnerability, risk, and resilience resulting from military service, deployment experiences, and feedback loops that occur over the life course. The article is divided into three broad sections that discuss (1) theoretical underpinnings of the model, (2) key components of the model, and (3) future directions for military social work practice.

Keywords:

• Deployment risk and resilience model
• military deployments
• post-deployment reintegration trajectories
• military social work
• resiliency theory
• behavioral health

Notes

This manuscript was supported in part by a Department of Veterans Affairs Predoctoral Fellowship sponsored by the Maryland Veterans Administration Health Care System, Baltimore campus. Portions of the deployment risk and resilience model were presented at the 54th Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education. The author extends appreciation to Llewellyn Cornelius, PhD, University of Maryland Baltimore, for consultation on previous conceptualizations of this model published as a part of the author's dissertation research. The views expressed herein are the author's and do not necessarily represent the official opinion of the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Guard Bureau, or any other government organization.

^aCicchetti & Rogosch, 1996;

^bConnor & Davidson, 2003;

^cFraser & Richman, 1999;

^dGermain & Bloom, 1996;

^dGrant & McMahon, 2005;

^fGreene, 2002;

^gGreene & Conrad, 2002;

^hMasten, 1994;

ⁱRichardson, 2002;

^jRichardson, Neiger, Jensen, & Kumpfer, 1990;

^kVan Breda, 2001;

^lEarolino-Ramirez, 2007.

⁺Concepts unique to the deployment risk and resilience model.

*See Belsky (1995) for a discussion of moderated mediation from the ecological perspective.