Washington D.C. — The Comfort Crew for Military Kids is joining America’s Promise Alliance and General Colin Powell at his Washington D.C. Summit, Building a Grad Nation. It is the premier event of Grad Nation, the 10-year campaign to end the high school dropout crisis and prepare young people for college and the 21st century workforce.
The Grad Nation campaign has two specific goals:
• To increase the national graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020 with no school graduating less than 80 percent
• To regain America’s standing as first in the world in college completion
Trevor Romain, who is a leading advocate for military children will speak at a panel called: Military-Connected Children: What Schools & Communities Need to Know.
There are more than two million children in the United States who are growing up in military families and who are dealing with really tough issues and are in great need of support. Of those, approximately 1.2 million are school-aged children and about 900,000 of them have had a parent deployed at least once in the first decade of the War on Terror. The vast majority lives and attends school in civilian communities.
The Summit will help the public learn about the particular issues that affect military-connected children, and how non-military school systems are successfully responding to those issues.
“I am trying to bring attention to the special needs of our nation’s military children, many who have lost a parent in combat, experienced the loss of a loved one, is separated from a family member due to deployment, or is coping with fears associated with a family member’s injuries sustained during combat,” said Trevor Romain, Co-Founder of The Comfort Crew for Military Kids.
According to the Department of Defense, over 45,000 service members have been physically injured and over 229,000 service members have been treated with traumatic brain injuries, and the Office of Veteran’s Affairs estimates that over 800,000 service members return with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Romain has worked with Building a Grad Nation for nearly two years and has been working with the USO for the last five years visiting approximately 80 military installations and letting children know they are not alone.
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The Comfort Crew for Military Kids
The Trevor Romain Foundation was first organized with broad goals: to create resources for children facing adversity. Our research for these resources led us to discover that there are 2 million military children in the US who are dealing with really tough issues and are in great need of support.
To that end, in May 2010, the Trevor Romain Foundation established the Comfort Crew for Military Kids, an initiative to help foster resiliency in school-age military children. This initiative is comprised of resources meeting the unique challenges of military life and includes the Foundation’s Deployment Resources, Grief Support Resources, and Caregiver Support Resources.
Whether a child has experienced the loss of a loved one, is separated from a family member due to deployment, or is coping with fears associated with a family member’s injuries sustained during combat, The Comfort Crew has developed a series of comfort kits that include resources that are both educational and comforting to that child. In general, a comfort kit will include a topic specific DVD, a journal for self expression, a keepsake box, an informative booklet for caregivers, and a plush toy representing Trevor Romain’s Comfort Crew.
www.thecomfortcrew.org