If you haven’t taken the time to take Blue Star Families’ online annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey, you have until 11:59 p.m. Friday, June 21 to do so.
The survey helps identify and analyze trends in military life issues, such as child care, spouse employment, relocation, deployments, pay and benefits, financial challenges, health concerns, satisfaction with military life, and a variety of other topics. Through this research Blue Star Families helps local and national government leaders understand the issues of military families. So whatever your experience is -- good, bad, neutral -- you should take the survey, because larger participation gives a fuller picture.
The survey is a joint effort between the Blue Star Families and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University.
It’s voluntary, anonymous, and takes about 30 to 35 minutes to complete, depending on your responses. At any point you can choose not to answer a question.
As an incentive for you to take the survey, you can enter a random drawing which will award $100 gift certificates to 100 survey participants. At the end of the survey, you’ll be redirected to a new page that is outside the survey that will allow you to enter your information.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
