23
April2025

GUIDING NEW FAMILIES THROUGH PARENTHOOD: THE NEW PARENT SUPPORT PROGRAM

ByKelly HallauerEditorsKate Abbate

In military families, everyday stressors can be heightened by factors like deployment or relocation. Having young children or being pregnant can add to these stressors and uncertainty, especially for first time parents. The New Parent Support Program (NPSP) works to help parents balance these stressors and ensure a successful transition through the journey of parenthood (Military OneSource, 2025). This article shares the services the NPSP offers, the needs they address, and how the services can be accessed.

Services Offered by the New Parent Support Program

The primary goal of the NPSP is to enhance the lives of children and promote their well-being, while offering services and information to make sure families thrive in their role as new parents along with their military lifestyle (Military OneSource, 2025). To meet their goal, the NPSP offers a variety of services to military families to help them balance family and military life. This includes home visits by professionals, such as nurses and social workers, parenting classes, organizing playgroups, and referrals to other resources.

Home visits offer an opportunity for parents to ask questions related to behavior management, sleep schedules, breastfeeding, and more, in the privacy of the family’s home. Parenting classes are an interactive way to focus on topics like child growth, managing the demands of parenting, positive discipline, and self-care. Organizing playgroups can help families build their support system within the military community. The NPSP also offers referrals to other resources through the military health care system to ensure that additional benefits are used as needed. These services are essential to the positive impact that the NPSP can have.

Mental Health Needs of New Military Families

The transition period of pregnancy and childhood can be stressful for new parents, but the NPSP works to counteract this by offering varying methods of support. Pretorius and colleagues (2024) learned that participating in group prenatal care was shown to have a positive effect on a mother’s mental health by giving mothers an opportunity to talk about their stress and feel comforted by peers. The NPSP works to implement this research by offering parenting classes and home visits to discuss these concerns. Pretorius and colleagues (2024) were also interested in learning more about the effects that social support has on infant-mother attachment. Through a literature review, they learned when women perceived they had more social support (e.g., from their partners, peers, family members), they tended to have better perinatal mental health (i.e., up to 6 months after birth) and infant-mother attachment (Pretorius et al., 2024). Social support is offered by the NPSP through the opportunity to organize playgroups and build a military community.

The New Parent Support Program also works to support couples during their parenting journey. Roth and colleagues (2024) investigated the relationship between how couples cope (i.e., dyadic coping) and the mother’s pregnancy and transition to parenthood. Overall, dyadic coping was beneficial to both the individual (e.g., quality of life, wellbeing) and the relationship (e.g., marital adjustment). Parenting classes work to help military couples manage the demands of parenting and feel confident in their ability to parent as a cohesive unit.

Accessing the New Parent Support Program

A 2023 report indicated that there are over 360,000 active-duty military dependents aged five and younger (DoD, 2023). The NPSP is free for these active-duty service members, as well as reservists, and national guard members. The program is available for military families expecting a baby or those who have a child aged three or younger (Navy, Army, Air Force) or a child aged five or younger (Marine Corps). These families are encouraged to participate in the services offered by the NPSP. The New Parent Support Program strives to support military families through a hands-on approach to mental health and stress related issues to promote child well-being and development.

Access to the NPSP is based around individual installations, since in-person home visits and resources are provided. Families can enroll in the program through their installations New Parent Support Program office, Family Advocacy Program, or Military and Family Support Center. Families can locate the office of these programs on individual installations from the Programs and Services database provided by Military OneSource.

References

Jones, M. N. (2024). Military spouses’ perceptions of family stress and resilience during multiple relocations [Ph.D., Walden University]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/3131065353/abstract/CD7B13A4056342FAPQ/1

Military OneSource. (2023). Chapter 5: Active-duty families, dependents. Military OneSource. Chapter 5: Dependents – 2023 Demographics Dashboards

Military OneSource. (2025). New Parent Support Program. Military OneSource. Support Programs for New Military Parents | Military OneSource

Pretorius, K., Sposato, M. F., & Trueblood-Miller, W. (2024). Perinatal mental health and active- duty military spouses: A scoping review. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 24(1), Article 557. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-024-06727-1

https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-Pretorius2024

Roth, M., Weitkamp, K., Landolt, S. A., & Bodenmann, G. (2024). Couples’ dyadic coping in the context of child-related stressors: A systematic review across three decades. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 13(3), 202-223. https://doi.org/10.1037/cfp0000237

https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-RothM2022

Wu, S., Kaplan, J., Trautwein, M. L., Nelson, D. A., Duong, A., Woolaway-Bickel, K., …Kurina, L. M. (2024). Incidence and predictors of postpartum depression diagnoses among active-duty U.S. Army soldiers. Journal of Women’s Health, 33(12), 1625–1634. https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2023.1010

https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-Wu2024

MOBILIZING RESEARCH, PROMOTING FAMILY READINESS.

These materials were developed as a result of a partnership funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) between the DoD's Office of Military Community and Family Policy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA) through a grant/cooperative agreement with Auburn University. USDA/NIFA Award No. 2021-48710-35671.


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