In June, the U.S. House passed a $408 billion defense spending measure that includes $5 million to expand the Citizen-Soldier Support Program, coordinated by UNC-Chapel Hill. The program mobilizes community organizations and services to support members of the National Guard and Reserve before, during, and after they are deployed.
Since National Guard and Reserve members and families often lack access to services available to full-time military personnel, the Citizen-Solider program provides resources to families, augments existing Defense Department programs, and brings together employers, schools, child-care providers, health professionals, and the faith community in a network of family support.
“When you’re in the Army Guard or Reserve, you’re in civilian life and a civilian community, but you’re training to handle everything from hurricanes and fires to combat situations and helping people in Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Dennis Orthner, professor of social work. “All this is not readily understood by community support systems. Many family members do not always know how to deal with all that being deployed brings.”
Orthner developed the program with retired Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Doug Robertson, director of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center, and Allison Rosenberg, associate vice chancellor for research. Orthner and Robertson direct the program. Rep. David Price (D-Chapel Hill), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, was the program’s chief sponsor.
The funding, if signed into law by President Bush as part of the Defense Department’s fiscal 2006 budget, would allow the program to expand across North Carolina and to other states. Currently, the program operates in five areas in North Carolina, including Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Rocky Mount, and Wilmington.
Deployments of the state’s National Guard and Reserve peaked at nearly six thousand in January, making it the largest mobilization since the Second World War. Nearly twenty-one thousand National Guard and Reserve members live in North Carolina.
