After a week of discussion in working groups, Army Family Action Plan, commonly referred to as AFAP, delegates reported to top Army leaders on the five most critical issues to be focused on this summer.
The number one issue, brought up by Family Support II Work Group was AFAP Issue 52-11 — Identification cards for surviving children with an active-duty sponsor.
This issue affects children who have dual military parents and one military parent dies. It also affects children who have a surviving parent who remarries a service member.
The children’s ID in this case only shows the AD status of the remaining active-duty parent, with no “survivor” designation, making their access to survivor benefits more difficult.
The work group recommended that both dependent survivor status and active-duty status on survivor children dependent ID cards be annotated.
AFAP Issue 19-11, announced by Education and Awareness Work Group, was “Formal standardized training for designated caregivers of wounded warriors.”
Designated caregivers frequently suffer from stress, frustration or burn out, which may lead to wounded warrior abuse and neglect.
Formal training on wounded warrior abuse and/or neglect awareness and prevention provided to the designated caregivers at the first continental U.S. medical transition point could reduce this risk and speed the recovery process.
The work group recommended that formal, standardized, face-to-face training for designated caregivers of wounded warriors be implemented. Training would include self-care, stress reduction, burnout and prevention of abuse and/or neglect.
The third top issue was about medically retired service members’ eligibility for concurrent receipt of disability pay.
The work group recommended elimination of the 20-year time-in-service requirement for medically retired service members to be eligible for CRDP.
The next issue involved a fee cap for Military Child-Development Program services.
The work group recommended establishing an MCDP cap of 25 percent of the military family’s total family income. This will minimize financial hardship caused by the disparity of the gross income to child care cost ratio, they said.
The fifth issue involved medical retention processing time restrictions for reserve-component Soldiers.
The work group recommended extending the MRP2 time restriction for National Guard and reserve Soldiers from six months to five years of release from active duty.
Of the 88 issues that made the trek from their local commands to the intense, annual week-long AFAP, the five ssues chosen by work-group delegates were pared down from 16 for presentation to Army senior leaders.
