(upbeat music)
- [Announcer] Welcome to EFMP & Me,
a new online tool from the Department of Defense
Exceptional Family Member Program
and Military One Source for service members
and military families who have family members
with special educational and or medical needs.
EFMP & Me was made to help families navigate the world
of EFMP resources from finding services
to working with local schools, offering access
to helpful information and tailored support 24/7
right from their desktop or mobile device.
And now the EFMP & Me tool has resources for you,
the leader, as well. As a leader in your unit,
you know, there are a number
of personnel issues which can affect readiness.
Having a family member with special needs could be one
of those issues, and it may require some extra support
from you so that the service member can focus
on what's needed to remain mission ready.
The EFMP & Me tool can put you in touch with
the information you need to assist, including resources,
talking points, FAQ's and more. With EFMP & Me, you can get
up to speed quickly on EFMP policies and program details
right from your computer or any mobile device
enabling you to provide clear answers
and helpful support when and where it's needed.
Learn about resources that can help unit members
with their individual challenges, stresses, and concerns
and know what contacts are available to offer help.
The more you know about EFMP,
the better you can help your service members
feel confident their family members are
receiving the support they need.
In this video, we'll walk you through the EFMP & Me tool
so you can see the help it provides
for both you and your unit members.
Let's start with an overview of how the tool works
for leaders. From the homepage, click on leadership
and log in using your Military OneSource account.
Make sure your account role is leadership.
Once signed in, leaders
at any rank or level can view this content.
At the top of the page
you can choose to jump to specific content, Resources for Me
Resources for My Unit and Frequently Asked Questions
and Answers about the program or browse through topics
from Understanding the Exceptional Family Member Program
to Understanding Service Member Challenges
to Resources for Service Members and Their Families.
Let's start at Resources for Me. In this category,
you'll find general information
and high-level overviews about the program.
This section was created to help leaders
at all levels learn more about EFMP
and how it can help families with special needs.
Next there's Understanding Service Member Challenges.
In this section, you can learn about assistance
for challenges that EFMP families often face such
as PCS, caregiver support, and more.
Now we move on to Resources for My Unit. Here,
you'll find quick connections to a vast store of resources
for service members by topic from about EFMP and enrollment
to childcare, to long-term and financial planning.
Lastly, we have Frequently Asked Questions.
These Q and A's were curated to connect leaders quickly
with the information they need about EFMP ASAP.
Those are just some of the resources available
in the For Leaders section of EFMP & Me.
Now let's take a minute to see how the tool works
for service members
and why it can be an important resource to recommend
to your unit member.
The Service Member and Family Member sections
of EFMP & Me are organized very differently
from the For Leaders section.
These sections use checklists and tasks
by topic to help users stay organized.
EFMP & Me has 18 different checklist categories to
answer questions and provide guidance.
Let's say one of your unit members has a young son
with special education needs and is getting ready to PCS.
They might be especially interested in checklist topics
education ages three through 21 and PCS
which can give them specific steps to take
to find a school that provides a special education program
at their new duty station.
And they can always add different checklists
for more step-by-step tasks whenever they want.
That's a brief overview of the EFMP & Me
online tool created to help address the needs
of EFMP families
and connect leaders to the resources they need to
support EFMP enrolled service members.
We hope you'll take some time to explore the tool,
learn more about the program
and recommend EFMP & Me to the families
in your command. To get the tool go to
EFMPandMe.MilitaryOneSource.mil
To learn more about EFMP
visit MilitaryOneSource.mil or call 1-800-342-9647.