By Jennifer Holliday

Military Family Liaison

"I love it when a plan comes together." - Hannibal Smith, The A-Team

Military spouses and service members know, all too well, that making a plan means changing a plan. Those real-time adjustments build our adaptability and out-of-the-box thinking. 

Creativity is what we need to solve the vast and complex problems under the umbrella of child care for military families. We need an actionable plan that will move the needle. It does not need to be a perfect plan, but it needs to be collaborative, and it needs to be adaptable.

"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking." - Voltaire

There are many stakeholders across the nation working to reduce the challenges faced by military families when seeking childcare as they move to each new duty station.

Recently, Olivia Burley, Military Spouse Liaison for the State of Washington, brought together several of these stakeholders for a discussion during a national conference. That led to Olivia's realization that we needed to create an on-going conversation where stakeholders could dive into common problems to find small, actionable solutions.

We needed to attack the overall problem with an "assault of sustained thinking," as Voltaire called it. If we started with a focus on small, actionable steps that could be taken locally, we could build a national foundation in support of reducing the barriers to childcare. With that, we could help reduce at least one barrier to military spouse employment.

Olivia's idea for a nationwide, virtual discussion became the Stakeholder Convening: Child Care for Military Families and launched in January 2025 as a collaborative project of the Military Spouse and Family Liaisons of Alabama and Washington.

Each month, we bring together a panel to discuss a designated topic. Time is also included for the panel and participating stakeholders to brainstorm in small group breakouts and develop action items for the month.

While these sessions are for stakeholders working in the child care for military families space, the agendas and notes for each meeting are posted publicly on the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs website: https://www.dva.wa.gov/childcarestakeholders.

If you are working at the local, state, or national level to improve child care for military families, we encourage you to contact Olivia and join the conversation.

If you are a military spouse, service member, or family member concerned about child care, we welcome your input and encourage you to send comments, questions, and ideas to Olivia Burley, Washington Military Spouse Liaison at militaryspouse@dva.wa.gov, or Jennifer Holliday, Alabama Military Family Liaison at jen@heroeswelcome.alabama.gov.