Families Support to Transition A Systematic Review of the Evidence Susanne Søndergaard, Kate Robertson, Erik Silfversten, Brent Anderson, Catherine Meads, Agnes Schaefer, Jody Larkin For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/rr1511 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., and Cambridge, UK © Copyright 2016 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. The research described in this report was funded by the Forces in Mind Trust, a Big Lottery Fund endowed spend-out Trust. RAND Europe is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org www.randeurope.org Preface RAND Europe was commissioned by the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) to conduct a study assessing the evidence base around families of UK military personnel during their transition to civilian life. While it is widely recognised that Service families influence successful transition, no systematic review has been undertaken in the UK on this subject prior to this study. To enhance understanding of the available literature in this area, RAND Europe was asked to conduct such a review. The review focuses on four areas of interest to FiMT: engagement with families, family breakdown, family housing, and spousal employment. This report presents the methods used and findings from a systematic review of the literature across the four thematic areas. It identifies key areas where relevant evidence is lacking and provides a number of recommendations on research that could be conducted in the future in order to strengthen the evidence base. This report will have relevance for policymakers responsible for policies relating to Service leavers and their families, as well as to researchers working within this field. It is also of relevance to support providers who are offering support to Service leavers and their families and who may need to be aware of which type of support is most effective. Finally, the report is relevant for funding providers, such as FiMT, in order to prioritise funding for research areas and support programmes in the future. RAND Europe is a not-for-profit policy research organisation that aims to improve policy and decisionmaking in the public interest through research and analysis. RAND Europe’s clients include European governments, institutions, non-governmental organisations and firms with a need for rigorous, independent, multidisciplinary analysis. For more information about the project or this report, please contact: Dr Susanne Sondergaard Senior Defence & Security Policy Analyst RAND Europe Westbrook Centre Milton Road Cambridge CB4 1YG UNITED KINGDOM Tel: +44 (0)1223 353329 Email: [email protected] iii Foreword by the Forces in Mind Trust One of the earliest pieces of research commissioned by Forces in Mind Trust was our Transition Mapping Study, which clearly identified the need to consider not just the Service leaver, but his or her family as well. The Study concluded that a stable family could contribute to the success of the Service leaver’s transition into civilian life, fulfilling the role as a ‘civvy street host’. But it also highlighted that in many cases, the family itself also had to undergo a transition. At the time, we coined the phrase ‘proxy transitioners’; but in reality there is nothing surrogate about it – in the areas of employment, housing, finance, relationships, health and wellbeing, the family undergoes a transition every bit as real and personally owned as that of the Service leaver. Easy is it to say, far harder to rectify the shortcomings in this process; and so following the strategy developed by Forces in Mind Trust, last year we concluded an engagement programme that sought the views of families, and a wide range of representative and other interested organizations, which resulted in our report ‘Better Understanding the Support Needs of Service Leaver Families’. It was as a direct result of this work that we commissioned the RAND Europe systematic review ‘Families Support to Transition’. By using our engagement programme to identify the priority areas, we have been able to target the key questions of: what relevant research already exists; and what methods would be most likely to be effective in filling any knowledge gaps? Thus we are confident that the strategic themes in Part 5 of our engagement programme report have been properly examined by RAND Europe here. This systematic review has revealed the paucity of UK-relevant evidence available to those whose role it is to support families, and we will now take the recommendations forward as part of our strategy to generate evidence from which to influence policy makers and service deliverers. That evidence needs to be credible to be effective. Equally, though, it does not necessarily have to be gold-plated, and we will also be looking for innovative ways to identify and to prove how better to support families in their transition. Certainly academic research has a major part to play, but it is just one part of the whole spectrum approach Forces in Mind Trust has adopted in our quest to effect real, positive change. Systematic reviews are inevitably out of date the minute they are printed and whilst thorough and comprehensive, this one will no doubt follow the same path, although the challenges to fund longitudinal and comparative studies will no doubt endure. That is why it is essential that we at Forces in Mind Trust move quickly to develop our proactive funding programme, not just so that we can capitalize upon this excellent systematic review, but also because the families within the Armed Forces Community are as deserving of the nation’s support as the Service men iv and women themselves. And move quickly, with purpose, focus and commitment, is exactly what we intend to do. Ray Lock, Chief Executive, Forces in Mind Trust Air Vice- Marshal Ray Lock CBE is Chief Executive of Forces in Mind Trust, and a former Commandant of the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham, and Station Commander of Royal Air Force Lyneham v Table of Contents Preface ......................................................................................................................................................iii Foreword .................................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... vi Figures .................................................................................................................................................... viii Tables ....................................................................................................................................................... ix Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................. xi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. xiv Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... xv 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background .................................................................................................................................. 2 1.2. Purpose and scope ........................................................................................................................ 3 1.3. Report structure ............................................................................................................................ 5 2. Methods ................................................................................................................................. 7 2.1. Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2. Systematic review and thematic review .......................................................................................... 8 2.3. Synthesising the evidence ............................................................................................................ 14 2.4. Methodological strengths and limitations ................................................................................... 15 3. Review findings ...................................................................................................................