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The Exceptional Family Member Program identifies servicemembers who have family members with special needs, ranging from diabetes or an allergy to autism.
Family members with special needs should be identified, which allows the Department of the Army to assign them to areas with resources available to take care of the family’s needs.
“We have different support groups on a monthly basis for all of the parents. We do workshops and bring in guest speakers and things of that nature in order to assist them and answer their questions. It lets them know they’re not going through this alone. This is our way of helping them obtain the tools that they need to make their child successful in the community, at school or wherever,” said Michelle Thomas, director of the U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern Army Community Service, the proponent for EFMP.
The autism support group is sponsored by local schools in the Department of Defense Dependents Schools area, and meetings are held in some school libraries. During support groups such as this, the local Girl Scouts baby-sit in order to allow the parents to attend.
“A mother of one of the kids started a group for autism support, or now known as speech communications difficulties, autism. It’s very supportive; it makes you feel like you’re not alone. It’s kind of nice seeing other children screaming and not having people staring at you funny for once. People aren’t thinking you’re a bad parent with a screaming child,” said Kristen Mancha, whose autistic son is enrolled in the EFMP.
A happy family at home is imminent to have an effective Soldier for any mission, Ms. Thomas said. In order for the EFMP program to give all services available to a Soldier and their family, they must closely track the child’s enrollment. If you can’t take care of a Soldier’s family, then you’re not going to have a happy Soldier, Ms. Thomas said.
“It’s very important that they stay updated on their enrollment. Soldiers must be updated every three years. This ensures that we can service their family members the way we know how to the best of our ability. We have great number of servicemembers that aren’t updating their records and as soon as it’s time for them to PCS and they need to take their family, the services won’t be available for them at the new installation,” she said.
The EFMP is hosting an annual summer camp for children around the area from Aug. 16 to 20 at the Kleber Child Development Center to give moms and dads a break for a week. The child will be at the camp from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
They will eat lunch and snack at the camp as well as go on daily activities out into the community ranging from the zoo to bowling. The theme of the program this year will be “Can you see what I see?” Once the children come back from the activities of the day, they will then be able to create different types of art based on what they see each day.
“The final day, we will have the KMC Onstage set up as an art gallery and display all of the art that they created. It’s just beautiful, you’d be amazed at how, for example, an autistic child sees a giraffe and how they put it on paper. It’s just beautiful, it makes you cry. Sometimes I ask myself, ‘We as a society sit there and look at a child and say oh he’s special. But you know what? Is he really special or are we special?’” Ms. Thomas said.
