Navigating the Navy with Children
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Helplines for Parents
National Parent and Youth Helpline
Call or text (855) 427-2736 at any time of day. Online chat services are also available 24/7. Services are free and available in 240 languages, including ASL.
Helpline run by Parents Anonymous dedicated to providing parents, youth, and children with the emotional support they need. For more information on the helpline and Parents Anonymous, you can clik the link above to check out their website.
Call 866-243-2229 at any time of day.
24/7 helpline run by the Shaken Baby Task Force to help parents with crying babies. For more information on the organization and the helpline, visit the Shaken Baby Task Force you can visit the Shaken Baby Task Force website via the link above.
Call 1-888-431-2229, Monday- Friday, 9:00 am- 5:00 pm Central Time. Services are free, available nationally, and available in Spanish.
Free warmline staffed with infant specalists dedicated to helping families struggling with their infants’ crying, sleeping, or feeding. Services are available in English and Spanish. Folks who call after hours will recieve a call back during the next business day. For more information, check out their website via the link above.
Perinatal Support Washington Warmline
Call 1-888-404-7763. Monday-Friday, 9:00 am-4:30 pm Pacific Daylight Time. Services are free and available in Spanish.
Warmline run by Perinatal Support Washington dedicated to helping parents and family members in Washington State cope with the perinatal stage (aka, the period of time spanning from when a person becomes pregnant until about a year after birth). The line is staffed by parents who have experienced a perinatal mood and/or anxiety disorder and have recovered fully, or by professionals with specialized training in perinatal mental health. On evenings and weekends, folks can leave a message and will recieve a call back within 1-12 hours. For more information, you can check out their website via the link above.
Resources for Navigating Military Life with Children
Sesame Street for Military Families
Helping kids navigate all the things that come with can be chalenging. Luckily, our friends over on Sesame Street are here to help! Among the many resources they provide areresources to help kids and families cope with PCSing, homecomings, transitions in healthcare, deployments, and many other challenges that come along with military life. For more information or to check out their resources, you can visit their website via the link above.
Resources for School
Naval Base Kitsap School Liason
Need help picking a school for your kids? Transferring credits? Home schooling regulations? College prep? IEPs? Contact the NBK School Liason. To contact their office or find out more about their services, visit the NavyLifePNW webpage via the link above.
Essential Goods for Kids and Expectant Parents
Local non-profit organization with multiple locations dedicated to providing kids with the essential care, safety, and health goods they need to grow and thrive. Kids ages birth through 12 are elligible for shoes, diapers, formula, blankets, and coats through their programs. They also provide expectant and post-partum mothers with maternity wear, personal care goods, and mother-infant support items. For more information on their offerings, check out their website via the URL above!
Keeping Kids Entertained
Macaroni KID provides local activity guides for kids and families, to include monthly calendars, local museums, farms, and much more! Checkout their website for Kitsap via the link above!
Childcare and Making Childcare Affordable
MilitaryChildcare.com is a DoD website that helps military families streamline their search for childcare by connecting families to information about local childcare resources 24/7, wherever they are in the world. The website allows families to conduct unlimited and customized searches to find appropriate childcare providers whenever and wherever they have internet access. For more information, visit their website via the link above.
The Military Childcare in Your Neighborhood (MCCYN) Program is a fee asstance program that keeps affordable childcare within reach of eligible families who are unable to access military-operated childcare due to distance or waitlists. The program is available to active duty members, reservists on active duty, and Navy civilians who are stationed at an installation that has been identified as assistance fee eligible or do not live near an installation with a Child and Youth program. If the elligible Navy affiliated family member is married, their spouse must be employed, actively seeking employment, or a full-time student. For more information on the program and elligiblity, please visit their webpage via the link above.
Childcare Reimbursement During PCS Moves
Beginning October 1, 2024, if childcare is unavailable within 30 days of your Date of Care Needed at at your new Permanent Duty Station, you may qualify for reimbursment for childcare. The program is authorized to run through September 30, 2027. For more information on the program, check out their webpage via the link above.
Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account
In order to help make childcare more affordable, the DoD allows service members to set up a special pre-tax spending account to help pay for elligible dependent care services, such as preschool, summer day camp, before and after school programs, and daycare services. Service members may contribute up to $5,000 per household per year. For more information on elligibility, what services this account can help pay for, and how to set up an account, please visit their MilitaryOneSource webpage via the link above.
Boys and Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound
Local branches of the Boys and Girls Club provide low-cost after school care and summer camps for kids. Branches are located in Belfair, Bremerton, Key Peninsula, Lakewood, Tacoma, and South Kitsap. For more information on transportation, services, hours, and pricing, checkout their website via the URL above!
General Parenting Resources
Call 1-800-322-2588 Mon.-Thur. 8:00 am-5:30 pm, Fri. 8:00 am-5:00 pm or visit their website via the link above.
Help Me Grow Washington is a free service that helps parents and caregivers find the resources they need, to include food assistance, physical healthcare, mental healthcare, housing, childcare, pregnancy support, and other resources. In support of this mission, they have created three resources: an online questionnaire that helps families determine elligibility for services, a searchable database of resources, and a hotline that can directly connect families with the resources they are looking for. All resources are available in Spanish, and the hotline has access to translators who speak other languages as well. For more information or to make use of their services, you can visit their website via the link above.
healthychildren.org is a parenting website run by the American Academy of Pediatrics and dedicated to helping parents understand their kids health and the health risks and difficulties kids may encounter as they grow up. As a part this mission, they provide a plethora of diffetent resources designed to help parents make the right health decisions for their children at all ages, to include symptom checkers, podcasts, a motor delay identification tool, tips on what to expect from children of different ages, a tool where you can directly ask a pediatrician an question, a number of articles on topics relevant to parents. For more information or to make use of their resources, you can visit the website via the link above.
Parenting.org is a website run by Boys Town, a renowned non-profit organization dedicated to caring for children and families. As a part of this mission they have created parenting.org, a website that houseses hundreds of parenting guides and articles ranging in subject from how to eat at the table as a family to suicidality and drug abuse. To check out their resources, you can visit their website via the link above.
Riley Children’s Health Hospital Health Information
Riley Children’s Health is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care children’s hospital associated with the Indiana University School of Medicine. As a part of their efforts to care for children and young people ages 0-21, they have created a Health Information section on their website designed to provide parents with inforamation about growth and development from ages 0-21, how to care for sick children, dental care, eye care, first aid, nutrition, and much more. To make use of these resources, you can visit their website via the link above.
New Parent Support
Washington wide organization dedicated to the emotional wellbeing of people in the perinatal period. In support of this mission, they provide a variety of services, to include a warmline (listed above), local support groups, online therapy services, a directory of online services, parent education programs, and perinatal loss resources. For more information, check out their website via the link above.
Parenting Children 0-5 Years
Zero to Three is a nation-wide non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all children have a strong start of life. In support of this mission, they provide a number of resources for parents- to include a bookstore filled with evidence based parenting books, articles about contemporary parenting topics, and resources specifically for military families! For more information or to make use of their services, visit their website via the link above.
Vroom is a free evidence based app run by the Bezos Family Foundation dedicated to providing parents and caregivers tips and triks to improve their childs brain health between the ages of 0-5. For more information or to download the app, visit their website via the link above.
Parenting Children who are Disabled, Differently Abled, Neurodiverse, or Have Mental Health Problems
Exceptional Family Member Program
The Exceptional Family Member Program is a DoD program designed to ensure that dependants with disabilities and medical conditions have access to the care and accomodations they need. For more about the program and how to enroll, visit the EFMP MilitaryOneSource webpage via link above.
The Child Mind Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. As a part of this mission, they provide a variety of services, to include evidence based articles on specific conditions, parenting guides, symptom checkers, and mental health treatment for residents of certain states. Parents can also email them directly with any questions they may have. For more information or to check out their offerings, visit their website via the link above.
The Kids Mental Health Foundation
The Kids Mental Health Foundation is the leading organization for promoting mental health for children in the United States. As a part of their mission, they have created a series of resources designed to help parents care for children with mental health problems. For more information or to make use of their offerings, visit their website via the link above.
Provided by Harbor Children’s Therapy, this toolkit is designed to help parents identify sensory preferences and how to navigate a parent-child relationship in which participants have different sensory preferences. For more information or to make use of the toolkit, visit the toolkit website via the link above.
Profectum is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the development and growth of all children, adolescents, and adults with autism and other developmental and mental health challenges through the DIR (Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship-based) model, which helps individuals develop across a wide range of areas (to include regulation, joint attention, communication and language, motor skills, cognition, ideation and execution, and social problem-solving) by using affect-based interactions. In support of their mission to provide this treatment, they provide a variety of services, to include the Profectum Parent Toolbox- a free, self-paced, online workbook and webcast series that teaches parents of neurodivese how to better support their childs engaging, playing, thinking, interacting, and communicating. For more information on DIR and Profectum, visit their website via the link above.
Lifespan Respite Washington is a state wide organization dedicated to ensuring that caregivers to disabled persons are able to get the rest they need. In support of this mission, they provide a variety of services, to include a voucher program, database of local organizations able to provide different kinds of respite care, and other resources. To visit their website, click the link above.
Early Life Speech and Language
Early Life Speech and Language is a statewide nonprofit that provides children between the ages of 2-7 with speech and language assessments and individual speach and language therapy for free. For more information on their offerings and services, please check out their website via the link above.
Vitalize Kitsap is a local organization dedicated to improving the lives of teens and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In pursuit of this mission, they offer daily programing to help members reach their individual goals in 7 important lifea areas: communication, education, health, relationships, community, work, and leisure. For more information on their offerings, check out their website via the link above!
The Holly Ridge Center is a local nonprofit dedicated to helping children and adults reach their full potential. In pursuit of this mission, they offer an infant and toddler program for children with developmental delays, and a vocational rehabilitation program for adults. Infant and toddler services are provided at no cost to the family. For more information on the center and their services, you can visit their website via the link above!
Camp Beausite is a Washington summer camp dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities have an inclusive summer camp experience. In pursuit of this goal, they offer summer camps, weekend camps, one-to-fun camps, and community events. For more information on their offerings, check out their website via the link above.
Parenting When You are Disabled, Differently Abled, Neurodiverse, or Have Mental Health Problems
Temple University Collaborative
Temple University Collaborative is a reasearch institute associated with Temple University dedicated to improving community inclusion with psychiatric disabilities. As a part of their mission, they have created a series of free, practical knowledge-based resources specifically for parents with mental health problems. For more information or to access these resources, check out their website via the link above.
National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities
The National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities is run by Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. As a part of their mission to improve the lives of parents with disabilities, their website hosts a series of resources for disabled parents, to include ADA workshops for parents and prospective parents with disabilities, parenting tips and strategies for disabled parents, and information on child welfare, family law, and the rights of parents with disabilities. To make use of these resources, visit their website via the link above.
The Center for Chronic Illness
The Center for Chronic Illness is a Seattle based nonprofit that provides support groups and educational events for those living with chronic health issues and their loved ones. Support groups are available online, free, and professionally facilitated. To learn more about the organization, join a support group, or view their list of resources, you can visit their website via the link above.
Autistic Parents UK is an autistic led nonprofit located in the UK. Even though they are located in the UK, their website has a number of resources accessible to those in the US, to include articles on parenting as a person with autism, parenting education for those with autism, and perinatal resources for those on the spectrum. To check out their resources, visit their website via the link above.
Trauma and Abuse Prevention and Recovery for Children
The DoD Family Advocacy Program is a DoD program designed to respond to adult-initiated child abuse and neglect, domestic abuse, and problematic sexual behavior in children and youth. As a part of their mission, they offer parent education programs (often available via in home visits), counseling for both survivors, emergency support services, housing, financial assistance, legal assistance, victim advocacy, and other services. For more information or to make use of their services, visit their Military OneSource webpage via the link above.
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) is a federally funded organization that is dedicated to raising the standard of care for children and families who experience or witness a traumatic event. As a part of thier mission, they provide a number of services, including clinical services, education, and resources for parents. For more information, visit their website via the link above.
The Mama Bear Effect is an educational resource for parents designed to help them prevent child sexual abuse. As a part of their mission, they provide educational resources for parents who are survivors, for parents of children with disabilities, and for parents of infants, toddlers, grade schoolers, tweens and teens. For more information or to make use of their resources, visit their website via link above.
The Safer, Smarter Families Family Safety Toolkit is a free resource designed to help families teach personal and digital saftey in a manner that is comfortable, age appropriate, and accessible for both parents and kids. For more information, check out their website via link above.
The National Children’s Alliance is the national association and accrediting body for Chidlren’s Advocacy Centers, which are local organizations that provide evidence-based responses to children experiencing abuse in all 50 states. For more informatin on Child Advocacy Centers or to locate one near you, you can visit the NCA website via the link above.
Children’s Advocacy Centers of Washington
Children’s Advocacy Centers of Washington is a state wide organization that works to ensure that children who have been subjected to abuse have access to the resources they need in order to recover. For more information or to find a center near you, you can visit their website via the link above.
Care House is an Ohio based Children’s Advocacy Center. As a part of their mission to support children who have survived abuse, they have created an extensive list of resources designed to help families around the nation connect with the resources and information they need. To make use of this list, you can visit the webpage via the link above.
Need a resource you couldn’t find here? Check out our other blog entries or contact the Ombudsman
Date of Creation: 09/06/2024
Date of Last Update: 02/03/2025