Military service attracts bright, capable and ambitious people, and the Defense Department must take their needs and those of their spouses seriously, said Ronald T. Keohane, assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs. 

These young and talented people want careers for both spouses, and DOD has been working for over a decade to eliminate roadblocks in the path of spouse employment, enabling spouses to build careers. In a recent interview, Keohane said the Defense Department has had successes over time and will continue to work to make opportunities available for military spouses. 

“The [Defense] Department is certainly committed to improving the economic security and quality of life of our military service members and families,” he said.  

That commitment comes right from the top with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s emphasis on taking care of people as part of the National Defense Strategy, Keohane said. “Secretary Austin has really put everything behind that,” he said. “And it has allowed the team to really focus on that and has given us what we need.” 

The very nature of military service makes it difficult for a spouse having a career because service members move a lot. Different states have different requirements, licenses or exams for certain jobs. Given all the moves, it’s difficult to launch and build a business.  

But there has been steady progress over the years. “If there was a one-size-fits-all solution, somebody would have done it years ago,” Keohane said. “We have to be flexible to find out what works and resilient enough to work through what doesn’t work.” 

Patricia M. Barron is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy and was a military spouse for 30 years. “I can tell you from experience. I’m a registered nurse,” she said during the interview. “Our first assignment was in Germany, and I didn’t work there. But over [my husband’s] career, I had to get seven different state nursing licenses, because none of this was in place when we were growing up in the military.” 

The nursing profession is a good example of these roadblocks for spouse employment. Each state had requirements for nurses to get a license unique to that state, she said. There was no reciprocity among the states, even though most states were shorthanded and needed nursing professionals. DOD worked with states and territories to enact interstate licensure compacts. These compacts not only benefited spouses of military personnel, but also other nurses who relocated.  

Teachers, social workers, psychologists, emergency medical technicians and additional careers are impacted the same way. Barron has overseen approval of a series of grants that will help military spouses with the issue of professional license portability by developing model interstate licensure compacts with various professions. 

The Department of Defense-State Liaison Office worked with state officials to adopt the compacts. In some — like nursing and teaching — they have made tremendous progress.  

Portability is one of the very big things that, obviously, impacts us, Keohane said. “It has made a world of difference, and as it has progressed over the years, we’ve opened the aperture.”  

The DSLO’s approach involves annually identifying state policy priorities that impact military family well-being. These priorities focus on addressing barriers that arise from the nature of military life. Keohane emphasized DOD is committed to improving the economic security and quality of life of our military service members and families. 

Behavioral health is an area where the Defense Department has made tremendous strides, Keohane said. “Our team has worked with the states on being able to … open the aperture and allow for more reciprocity, and portability of licenses.” 

State and local governments, medical facilities and the DOD are looking to hire thousands of these specialists.  

“The private sector is often hiring military and family life specialists away from us,” the assistant secretary said. He added that the department competes with the private sector for talent, including military spouses working in the mental health sector.  

The military needs more than 2,500 of these counselors worldwide to support service members and their families. “One of our biggest challenges coming out of COVID was the ability to get folks to move to some of these harder to fill areas,” Keohane said. “One of the things impeding this was the licensure issue.”  

Over the past two years, there have been some successes. For example, specialists in one area working with military families, can cross state lines to work with military families. Military spouses are also taking advantage of opportunities to train into these jobs. “Our military spouses are highly educated,” Keohane said. “They certainly have more educational credits and proficiency than some of their counterparts or their peers [in the general public].” 

They are taking advantage of local or online courses to gain proficiency — not only as military and family life specialists, but in other fields. 

There are other barriers that effect spouse employment with one of the most crucial being the availability of childcare. “These are all interrelated,” Barron said. “Access to childcare for military spouses has certainly been a large hurdle. We’ve made some incredible leaps and bounds over the last several years.” 

“One thing we started to find out was that there were states that had something called quality rating and improvement programs,” Keohane said. “When you looked at it, you realized that as they were bringing providers in and having them go through the quality wickets that we have. They were actually meeting our standards. So, we’ve been able to really expand that footprint.” 

This has made a significant difference in 14 states and one county in Florida, he said. Through that process, DOD has been able to certify more than 2,000 providers across the United States with more than 6,000 families receiving childcare, Keohane said. 

Some of the best ideas came from service members and spouses. They felt there should be a summit on childcare.  

The DOD team looks at all suggestions to see if they have the authority to carry them out, if there are the resources to put them in place, and if they make sense. The team also goes back and looks at older suggestions to see if the environment has changed and these can be adapted to the present day. “It’s that continuous evolution of what could we be doing better that has made the improvements,” Keohane said.  

Spouse employment is a bipartisan issue, and the DOD has no problems asking Congress for help. “Our office is always happy to work with Congress to break down any barriers that restrict spouses from being fully employed as they [Permanent Change of Station],” Keohane said. “We enjoy a positive working relationship with the Hill, including both member offices and professional staff on the various committees.” 

One of the goals for the Defense Department is to lower the military spouse unemployment rate. “I think it’s way too high,” Keohane said. “I think we have a moral and ethical obligation to helping these military families. As we all know, less than 1% of the American population donned the uniform, but 100% of us are more than happy to reap the benefits of what they provide. We have a real commitment that we need to follow through with these military spouses.” 

For More Information:

DOD Receives Approval for Grants to Develop Interstate Compacts for Licensure Portability 

This Defense news article "DOD Making Progress in Eliminating Bottlenecks to Spouse Employment Through State-Level Advocacy" was originally found on https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/