Civilian Post-Deployment Reintegration: A Review and Analysis of Practices Across U.S. Federal Agencies

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dunigan, Molly

Contributor:

Cherney, Samantha

Gore, Kristie L.

Kidder, Katherine L.

Schwille, Michael

Sladden, James

Language:

English

Other Title:

Civilian Post-Deployment Reintegration

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, Calif. RAND Corporation 2020

Summary:

Over the past two decades, the United States has deployed an unprecedented number of U.S. federal government civilians to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to perform a wide variety of tasks. As more civilians have deployed, increasing numbers have been exposed to high-threat environments and high levels of stress. Studies of civilians (both government-employed and contractors) deployed to areas of conflict indicate that combat exposure and related stressors correlate with significant levels of deployment-related health conditions for this population. Anecdotal evidence further confirms that deployed civilians face similar deployment-related challenges to those experienced by military personnel, in terms of both health conditions and family challenges. This evidence demonstrates that there is a likely need for civilian post-deployment reintegration support. However, until now, a descriptive account of the specific policies, processes, tools, and outputs associated with reintegration for deployed civilians has been lacking. This report reviews and analyzes assessments of the practices that U.S. federal agencies use to reintegrate civilians following domestic or overseas deployments to high-threat environments. The researchers aim to determine the extent to which such activities vary across the interagency community, and also identify promising practices for such agencies to pursue in the future. The authors leverage interview insights from federal agencies and a review of U.S. military post-deployment reintegration to accomplish these tasks. The authors also draw on U.S. military and Department of Defense civilian policy, programs, and experiences with redeployment to inform future reintegration efforts.