Caring for Military Children in the Emergency Department: The Essentials

The life of a military child has several challenges that can provide opportunities for resilience or risk for vulnerability. Nurses in emergent/urgent care may encounter military children when they are in a stressful transition such as during a move or deployment. Understanding the unique lifestyle of military children and implementing some key suggestions for practice can improve outcomes for this population. This article highlights the exceptional context of military children, military transitions, and opportunities to recognize families who are at risk and strategies to reach out using the I CARE (identify, correlate, ask, ready resources, and encourage) framework.