Key Spouses offer support, build community

  • Published
  • By Meredith March
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  For many of the Air Force's active-duty families, summer is a time of change. Summer is a season of PCS moves, command changes, retirements and deployment returns and departures. While these changes can be welcome adjustments, they can also cause apprehension or concern for the families and individuals involved. Hanscom's Key Spouse Program, which was revitalized two years ago, is a valuable resource for families as they face these events and for individuals seeking involvement in the community.

Key Spouses are commander-appointed volunteers, trained by the Airman and Family Readiness Center, who offer Hanscom families peer support, resource information and privacy-protected direct lines of communication with unit leadership, including first sergeants and commanders.

While the central purpose of the program is to extend fellowship and guidance to newly-arrived families and address the needs of families facing deployments and extended TDY assignments, Key Spouses also provide a sense of community within their units and throughout Hanscom, said Marcia Bowlds, Hanscom's Key Spouse mentor and wife of Electronic Systems Center Commander Lt. Gen. Ted Bowlds.

"When our program was revitalized, we were asked not only to pay attention to the families of our deployed, but also to be what Air Force spouses have always been in the past -- a place of welcoming, a place to take notice of sicknesses, hospitalizations, new babies, promotions and retirements -- and to bring people together and reach out on a more personal level," she said.

The community-building role of the Key Spouse is imperative in creating support systems for families in need of comfort or assistance, Mrs. Bowlds said.

"I feel like it's very easy for the military family to get isolated, especially when there's a deployment or an extended TDY. There are spouses who get isolated and in the midst of a crisis, they don't know where to go. They don't know how to reach out. The Key Spouse is one avenue to bring in the great resources that we have available. Sometimes all they need is a phone call. Sometimes there are issues where they actually need access to Military OneSource, Airman and Family Readiness Center resources or their first sergeant. The role of the Key Spouse is to help them through that really tough time or that transition to a new community."

For more information on the Key Spouse program, contact your unit first sergeant or call the Airman and Family Readiness Center at 781-377-4222.