Airmen and Family Readiness Center keeping families strong

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Jacob Jimenez
  • 482nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASE, Fla. --  Families matter! For traditional reservists, air reserve technicians, active duty,  retired service members, and Department of Defense civilians, families often play a major role in supporting careers in the military. The Homestead Air Reserve Base Airmen and Family Readiness Center preserves the welfare of personnel and their families through a myriad of services.

"Retention and preservation of Airmen and their families is an essential part of readiness and supporting our mission," said Ms. Deana Jacobs, Director of Airmen and Family Readiness.

The primary purpose of the Airmen and Family Readiness Center is to help personnel and their families stay mission ready by offering services such as family life education, relocation, money management, employment assistance, loan closets, and information and referrals.

Family life education services offered include deployment support programs, parenting information, elder care information, and family readiness care plan information. Additionally, students can access free online tutoring through www.tutor.com/military, a DOD online homework and tutoring service provides tutoring on math, science, english, social studies, test prep, and other subjects.

The Airmen and Family Readiness Center understands moving from one place to another can be stressful. The center offers relocation assistance to those eligible by providing them with base and local area information, information on a relocation base, and information on community resources.

"An Airman's family is their primary support system and the backbone of the military," said Jacobs. "We want our military families to live comfortably in their community while also maintaining financial stability"

Another goal of the Airmen and Family Readiness Center is to ensure financial readiness of personnel. The center offers free informational tools to manage finances, including money management software such as "PowerPay".  Financial consultation is also available by center personnel.  Due to the importance of family finances, the center offers money management advice, referrals, information on scholarships, home buying, vehicle purchasing, retirement, investment advice, and community discounts.

The Airmen and Family Readiness Center also recognizes servicemembers have an immediate need for spending money or money to pay past due bills. Therefore, the center has various resources to meet the immediate financial needs or find an appropriate solution. For Airmen who find themselves in financial hardship and are on orders for more than 15 days, the Air Force Aid program can provide cash loans for those who qualify.

"When servicemembers go through financial, marital, family, health and physiological hardships, Airmen and Family Readiness is here to help them and their families," said Jacobs.

One of the Airmen and Family Readiness Center's unique services offered is the Loan Closet. The Loan Closet offers various household goods such as kitchen items, cots and baby items that are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

With workforce reductions and restructuring becoming the norm for many businesses, the Airmen and Family Readiness Center developed a Personal Improvement Center. The center provides job referrals, computerized resume software, assistance with job applications, and individual guidance with career decisions.

"Airmen can depend on us to answer questions and concerns or refer them to the appropriate agency to best help them and their families," said Jacobs. "Taking care of families is sometimes just a matter of providing them with much needed information".

The Airmen and Family Readiness Center is regularly contacted by various agencies looking to offer special rates or discounted services to servicemembers. As result, the center offers a wide variety of information and referral services. The center has numerous community resources to assist any DOD identification card holder. Two major agencies they work with are Military OneSource and the Beacon Council. Military OneSource offers financial guidance, relocation assistance, translation services, counseling, child care, deployment support and many other resources free to active duty, Guard, Reserve and family members. For more information about Military OneSource, call: 1-800-342-9647 or visit www.MilitaryOneSource.com.
The Beacon Council offers a program called The Miami-Dade Defense Alliance, which works with various community businesses offering discounts to military members. To see their community resource guide and discount directory, visit www.beaconcouncil.com/mdda.

"It's important for servicemembers and their families to know we're here to support them through all stages of the military life cycle, with a special emphasis on deployment readiness," said Jacobs.

The Airmen and Family Readiness Center is located on base in building 360, room 130. The center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the Airmen and Family Readiness Center, call 786-415-7329.