Researching with military families as an early childhood specialist, Dr Marg Rogers’ work has never neatly fitted any single category. But now, it’s transforming the experiences of families around the world.
Dr Rogers’ initial research with children from military families found they experienced a number of psychosocial issues resulting from having a parent working away on military deployment that no first-hand research had explored. Also, there were no Australian resources to help prepare young children and build their coping strategies.
She found other issues such as frequent relocation, fears for the safety of their parents, and parents with service related injuries (physical, mental and/or moral) were having significant impacts that were not well-understood or supported by existing resources.
Taking that research further, Dr Rogers began to create a whole suite of free resources to support military families with a creative and research team, including storybooks and activities for children and learning modules for their parents and support networks.
Working closely with families and stakeholders, the suite has expanded to meet demand for other family work situations, such as parents with fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) work.
Now, four of the children’s storybooks have been adapted in Canada, and translated into French.
It’s not the trajectory Dr Rogers had imagined for the resources, but she says collaborating with other military researchers internationally is a dream come true.
“I had always dreamed of going to the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR) Forum, which is one of the biggest gatherings of military connected researchers. They have a whole stream for military family researchers. Coming from a rural university, even meeting someone else who researches in your field is a treat,” she says.
That dream began to be realised when Dr Rogers was able to attend and present virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following that, the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation at CIMVHR asked if they could culturally adapt her team’s storybooks for Canadian families and translate them into French.
“They didn’t have children’s storybooks for Canadian military, veteran and first responder families that were based on the experiences of the children and families,” Dr Rogers says. “The books they found were not necessarily written from a strengths-based perspective to improve the coping strategies of the children.”
I had always dreamed of going to the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR) Forum, which is one of the biggest gatherings of military connected researchers. They have a whole stream for military family researchers. Coming from a rural university, even meeting someone else who researches in your field is a treat.
Although Dr Rogers and her research and creative team have produced the products under a Creative Commons Licence so they can freely be adapted, the CIMVHR and partner organisation the Canadian Forces Morale Welfare Service (CFMWS) chose to work with Dr Rogers and her team on the adaptations.
The adaptations include new illustrations to reflect national flora, fauna, flags and uniforms, adjusted terminology, vernacular, analogies that resonate with the new audience, and differences in the experiences of families.
The draft adaptations were tested with families and service providers, then were edited before being released. Interpreters worked to translate them into French to suit their French speaking families. 
"Like Australia, many service families in Canada are posted to regional, rural and remote communities where access to mental health support is challenging, which is why having free, online access to the resources is so important,” Dr Rogers said.
The Canadian versions have also been developed in hard copy, with copies available in school libraries in communities where military families live, and to Military Family Resource Centres run by CFMWS.
The resources also include ‘fireside read-alongs’ of the stories, including one by Chris Hadfield, an astronaut and veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.
And the work will not stop anytime soon. There are still eight storybooks in the suite that Dr Rogers’ Canadian partners are keen to adapt, with four adaptations currently underway, and other international projects in the works.
“Due to our partnership with CIMVHR (Queens University), we have just started liaising with a Lithuanian team from Vytautas Magnus University who are working with other international teams to produce storybook resources for children impacted by the Ukrainian war,” Dr Rogers says.
Overall, Dr Rogers says the project is an important reminder of the “power of gathering and elevating children’s stories and others with lived experience,” and of the benefits of collaboration.
“Having co-authors for the new books from interdisciplinary careers in psychology, psychiatry, mental health support, family support, machine vision learning, inclusion support and play therapists has helped me develop my skills in supporting children through narrative,” Dr Rogers says.
“I often feel like I am the luckiest person in the world to work with such knowledgeable team. I am always humbled when so many service community members volunteer to support us when we are co-creating resources.
“They say the free resources are what they needed when they were raising children or when they were children in service families.”
Find the Canadian resources on the CIMVHR website. The Australian resources can be found on the Child and Family Resilience Programs website.
