Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
A core tenant of military life is the importance of family readiness as it relates to force readiness. The necessity of supporting service members and their families in an all-volunteer force is evidenced in both the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 and in the current text of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024. These supports for quality of life may include, but are not limited to, issues such as food insecurity, mental health and counseling services, domestic and sexual violence, support for individuals with disabilities, childcare, and housing among others. Service members need to focus on their mission readiness and in order to do so, it is critical they know their families are ready and prepared for life's challenges. Military families face unique stressors including permanent changes of station, lengthy work hours for the service member, deployments, and exposure to combat-related activities (MacDermid Wadsworth, 2010). Most military families are resilient in the face of these challenges, but community support is critical to developing and maintaining family resilience (Bowen, Martin, & Mancini, 2013).In 2021, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued DoD Instruction 1342.22, establishing the Military Family Readiness System (MFRS). The MFRS is an integrated approach to service delivery that increases family readiness, which in turn increases the retention, resilience, readiness, and quality of life for service members and their families. OneOp supports Secretary Austin's 2021 priorities to grow our nation's talent, build resilience and readiness, and strengthen partnerships across the United States of America by advancing the MFRS through open-access learning and networking opportunities for service providers. Our target audience includes professionals working on and off installations, throughout the Cooperative Extension System, and within communities nationwide to help families navigate the unique experiences of active-duty service. Fundamentally, service providers need to understand their role in the MFRS as well as maintain content-based knowledge, training, and credentials. Ensuring adequate and relevant research-based and evidence-informed professional development and credentialing across this wide range of services is an expensive and time-consuming effort.OneOp, currently based at Auburn University, has thirteen years of experience meeting DoD's professional development needs. The current OneOp team includes eight collaboration teams led by faculty at land grant and military-serving universities: Personal Finance (University of Kentucky), Family Transitions (Cornell University), Nutrition and Wellness (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Military Community Advocacy (Virginia Tech), Building Communities (North Dakota State University), Lifespan Caregiving (Texas A&M), Military- Connected Children and Youth (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Souse Employment (East Carolina University). Working closely with subject matter experts at DoD to identify critical and trending issues, our collaboration teams create and deliver timely and innovative professional development opportunities for service providers worldwide. The work of the collaboration teams is supported by a Core Leadership (CL) team with expertise in family science, human development, curriculum and instruction, program development and evaluation, educational technology, communications, and web-based educational platforms.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
OneOp is a free and open-access professional development resource for military family service professionals (MFSPs). Our mission is to strengthen the capabilities and impacts of service providers via research-based and evidence-informed learning and networking opportunities. We collaborate with DoD and the Land Grant University System to meet the professional development needs of service providers with programming that reflects complex and dynamic DoD priority areas. As a virtual organization with global reach, our vision is to facilitate the connections and shared knowledge required of providers to advance DoD's MFRS. We believe that providers are powerful when they work together as a ready, knowledgeable, and networked community. This power transforms the military families they serve.The mission and vision for the MFLN informed development of the following goals:Goal 1: Meet specific professional development needs of the MFSPs in the areas of: Personal Finance, Family Transitions, Nutrition and Wellness, Military Community Advocacy, Building Communities, Lifespan Caregiving, Military Connected Children and Youth, and Spouse Employment. These eight collaboration teams are staffed across various Land Grant Universities that provide resources/staff for this effort;Goal 2: Create engaged online communities; andGoal 3: Encourage continued dialogue between CES professionals throughout the nation and MFSPs.OneOp's mission and vision drives the strategy for the following objectives:Objective 1: Manage the delivery of virtual learning using the theory and practice of adult education (andragogy) through the above collaboration teams.Objective 2: Continue to provide and find innovative and effective research-based and evidence-informed resources and programming that would support the professional development needs of providers working across the Military Family Readiness System.Three guiding principles inform all phases of our work and create the optimal underlying conditions necessary to achieve our objectives.1.Collaboration: Collaboration among OneOp and DoD subject matter experts insures we are meeting the professional needs of service providers amidst the complex and dynamic DoD efforts driving family and force readiness.2.Integration: We integrate our collaboration outcomes into priority-driven programming that ensures service providers are ready, knowledgeable, and networked as an integrated professional human system capable of responding to the most pressing issues affecting service members and their families.3.Andragogy: Adult learners have specific learning needs further mediated by online learning environments. OneOp centers adult learning principles via supportive, respectful, and trustworthy learning environments. We recognize service providers as on-the-ground experts in need of workplace-relevant, problem-centered, and self- directed learning activities.
Project Methods
Program development, implementation, and evaluation activities for the project exist along a reflection and action feedback loop derived from a utilization-focused evaluation paradigm. Project activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact are continually assessed using a formative approach. Continual data collection and analysis helps to ensure mission integrity, supports project and programming innovation, and allows for the responsive and flexible educational environment required for effective adult learning experiences. Formal evaluations dispersed through Virginia Tech's Qualtrics platform include webinar and course evaluations (approximately 50 per calendar year), an MFRA evaluation (once per year), and an annual evaluation to assess program impact (once per year). Evaluation protocols and instruments are reviewed for human subject protection and approved for use by Virginia Tech's Institutional Review Board. Webinar, course, and academy evaluation surveys and reports provide information on immediate programming outcomes, significant learning experiences, and participant intent to apply knowledge. The annual evaluation survey captures project impact over time by assessing the value participants apply to programming participation, knowledge implemented over time, and new workplace habits and norms that support interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration. The methodology for the annual report has been uniquely adapted for OneOp from the work of social learning and communities of practice scholars (Wenger, Trayner, & deLaat, 2011).An ongoing challenge for OneOp is reaching our target audiences. In addition to our own marketing and promotions strategies, we rely heavily on DoD subject matter experts for direct communication support to professionals at the installation level. DoD staff turnover can present challenges for maintaining consistent communications and messaging. Another challenge is the technical ability to reach military-connected audiences with our platforms. Installation firewalls and varying internet access/email protocols can present significant technical challenges. To help mitigate these challenges, we offer live webinars in both Zoom and YouTube, and have constructed a new online learning library, making it easier for busy professionals to access learning opportunities and earn continuing education units.Project monitoring reports (quarterly and annual intervals) highlight the ongoing progress being made against project deliverables. All formal reports are distributed to DoD and USDA NIFA. Additionally, ongoing data collection insights and overall progress against objectives are communicated via regular Zoom meetings as follows:Quarterly all-hands meetings with OneOp, DoD, and USDA NIFA partners to discuss project progress, challenges, and adaptations.The National Project Leader meets weekly with the DoD Program Analyst to discuss ongoing outcomes, emerging issues, progress against deliverables, challenges, and adaptations.Collaboration teams meet monthly with their DoD subject matter experts to discuss programming plans and outcomes, communications strategies, and emerging issues.