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Military Teen Toolkit

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Resources for Supporting Your Teen’s Mental Health

Military life can be exciting and adventurous, but it also comes with challenges, especially for teens who face frequent moves, deployments, and the stress of a parent serving in harm’s way. This toolkit offers tips for military parents to help their teens navigate these challenges and maintain good mental health.

Communication is Key

  • Initiate Conversations: Don’t wait for your teen to “open up”. Regularly check in with them about their day, school, friends, and feelings.
  • Active Listening: When your teen talks, truly listen. Put away distractions, avoid interrupting them, offer empathy, and ask clarifying questions.
  • “I” Statements: Use “I” statements to express your concerns without sounding accusatory. For example, “I worry when you stay up so late” instead of “Why are you always up so late?”
  • Respect Privacy: Respect your teen’s need for privacy but establish boundaries. Let them know you’re always available to talk.
  • Deployment Discussions: Talk about deployments well before they happen. Address their worries about safety, missing friends, and managing household responsibilities.
  • Deployment Traditions: Create routines or traditions to maintain connection during deployments. This could be a weekly video call, writing letters together, or sending a small care package each week.

Building Resilience

  • Develop Routines: Establish consistent routines at home and school, even during deployments. This provides a sense of normalcy and stability.
  • Encourage Exercise: Regular physical activity reduces stress, improves mood, and promotes healthy sleep patterns.
  • Healthy Eating: Focus on providing nutritious meals and snacks to fuel your teen’s body and mind.
  • Relaxation Techniques: Teach your teen relaxation techniques like deep breathing exercises, mindfulness meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation.
  • Positive Coping Mechanisms: Help your teen develop healthy coping mechanisms like journaling, creative outlets, or spending time in nature.

Recognizing Signs of Trouble

  • Emotional Changes: Be aware of sudden changes in mood like increased irritability, sadness, or anger.
  • Behavioral Changes: Watch for social withdrawal, neglecting hobbies, or increased risk-taking behaviors.
  • School Struggles: Pay attention to slipping grades, difficulty concentrating, or lack of motivation for schoolwork.
  • Physical Changes: Notice changes in sleep patterns, energy levels, appetite, or self-care habits.
  • Substance Abuse: Be aware of signs of drug or alcohol use, which can be a way of self-medicating.

Getting Help

  • MFLC Program: The Military and Family Life Counseling (MFLC) program helps military families overcome challenges with free non-medical face-to-face support. Services are private and confidential with a few exceptions. Support is available at many installations and affiliated schools.
  • Military OneSource: This program offers a variety of resources, including:
  • 24/7 confidential counseling: Speak with a licensed therapist specializing in military families.
  • Workshops and webinars: Learn about common challenges teens face and develop coping strategies.
  • Online resources: Access articles, videos, and tools to support your teen’s well-being.
  • Chaplain Services: Chaplains offer non-denominational emotional and spiritual support and can be a valuable resource during difficult times.
  • Military Teen Support Groups: Connecting with other teens facing similar challenges can be a source of comfort and understanding. Talk to your teen’s school counselor or local military base about support groups.
  • Mental Health Professionals: If your teen needs more comprehensive support, consider seeking help from a therapist specializing in adolescents or military families.

Additional Resources

Remember:

  • Take care of yourself. A healthy parent can better support a healthy teen.
  • Celebrate accomplishments. Acknowledge your teen’s strengths and resilience.
  • Be patient. Building resilience and coping skills takes time and practice.
  • Seek professional help if needed. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you feel overwhelmed or your teen needs additional support.
  • The military community is here for you. There are many resources available to support you and your family.


Spotlight Magellan Health: Greg Dicharry

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For Greg Dicharry, his work at Magellan Healthcare is not just a job, it’s a passion. Filming and directing documentaries highlighting suicide awareness has been a welcome side gig of Dicharry’s job as national youth empowerment director at Magellan. For the past 14 years, Dicharry has been connecting with people affected in some way by suicide, substance use and other mental health concerns. From those experiences, he launched the MY LIFE (Magellan Youth Leaders Inspiring Future Empowerment) program. MY LIFE provides various activities and workshops for youths ages 13 to 23-year-olds nationally who have experience with mental health, substance use, juvenile justice or foster care-related issues or have a friend or family member coping with these issues. Dicharry’s latest documentary project, “My Ascension,” shows the crippling effects suicide can have on families while telling the captivating personal story of a suicide survivor. Continue reading to learn more about the MY LIFE program and Dicharry’s upcoming documentary.

What sort of projects are you currently working on?

My main responsibility at Magellan is overseeing our MY LIFE program, which we created in 2008 as part of our Maricopa County, Arizona contract. Since 2008, MY LIFE has been leading the way nationally for youth involved in behavioral health and foster care systems. Through regular meetings, special events, performances, social media, and local and national presentations, youth share their stories and support each other in their recovery goals. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Magellan launched the Stay Home for MY LIFE virtual youth fest series in 2020. I also do a lot around suicide prevention for the Company and am a part of the new Suicide Center of Excellence. In my spare time, I create documentaries. Over the last three years I’ve been working on a documentary called “My Ascension.” Prior to that I had done another documentary called “Suicide: The Ripple Effect” but this new one is on teen suicide. I made it with a young lady who is a suicide attempt survivor. She attempted to take her life by gunshot and the result was that she is now paralyzed. She had this rebirth through that and now uses her experience to help others via speaking and advocacy, so the story is largely her story but also of other young people in the community who were successful in their suicide attempts and the aftermath of how that has affected their families.

“My Ascension” will premiere nationally on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) in September. The primary distribution method has been virtual community screening around the country. We’ve done screenings with a couple of universities and several advocacy and mental health groups.

What inspires you to create these documentaries?

I dabbled in film and media throughout high school and college. When I moved to Los Angeles I started working on projects like movies, award shows, commercials and music videos and learning that way.

With the MY LIFE program, I had gotten a camera through Magellan and was able to start producing videos with the youth group so that got me back into filming and then I met a man through work, who’s a suicide attempt survivor, we became friends and he approached me wanting to make a documentary and I helped him with producing and directing. I didn’t plan on doing another documentary, but the opportunity came to tell this very compelling story for “My Ascension” that could reach a lot of young people and empower them in helping them to share their stories.

I also have a personal connection to this where I’ve found myself struggling with suicidal thoughts, and my cousin who was bipolar with a substance abuse issue and died by suicide about 20 years ago. I saw the impact that had on his family and that inspired me to be interested in the topic.

Why is Magellan the best place to do this project?

Magellan is open to innovation, even though it’s a big company everyone is open to new ideas to help better serve our members and customers. For example, with MY LIFE I came up with the idea to do this, it wasn’t something that was a part of my job description or something Magellan had ever done. But they let me run with it and it was successful. People saw the value of it and saw that the opportunity to serve our members and provide them with something in a different way.

With the documentaries, my job had allowed me to be able to do that kind of stuff on the side and it ended up being another way to connect with people differently way and blend the work I’m doing here.

What are your thoughts on the culture here at Magellan? How has the culture at Magellan impacted your project?

It’s a culture that’s open to innovation and that’s open for doing unique things that are engaging for our customers. It’s very supportive, encouraging, and positive work happening here.

  • Learn more about MY LIFE here.

 



Depression and mental health screening

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Among those who experience a mental health illness, more than half do not receive treatment.[1] The 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reveals no treatment was received by:

  • 90% of the 20.4 million individuals aged 12+ who have a substance use disorder (SUD)
  • 55% of the 51.5 million individuals aged 18+ who have any mental illness (AMI)
  • 35% of the 13.1 million individuals aged 18+ who have a serious mental illness
  • 90% of the 9.5 million individuals aged 18+ who have a co-occurring SUD and AMI
  • 57% of the 3.8 million individuals aged 12-17 who have had a major depressive episode

In fact, what we’ve seen in our data is that 60% of patients who are admitted to inpatient care were first seen in a primary care setting within 6-12 months of the admission and the mental health condition was either missed or not addressed.

Through effective screening for mental health conditions on your own or through a physician or mental health professional, it is possible to identify problem areas and get help, so you can live a happier and healthier life.

Mental health self-screening tools

Magellan Healthcare provides links to reputable, free self-assessments of behavioral/mental health, substance use and more.* Once you complete an assessment, be sure to review your results and any recommendations with your doctor.

*Note these are links to outside websites that are not monitored by or affiliated with Magellan Healthcare. If your screening results indicate you are at high risk, call 911 or go to the emergency room immediately.

We encourage you to watch a recording of our webinar, “Depression is more than just a rough patch,” and find additional resources addressing depression at MagellanHealthcare.com/Mental-Health.

[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29392/Assistant-Secretary-nsduh2019_presentation/Assistant-Secretary-nsduh2019_presentation.pdf