Whether it’s just you and your partner, or you also have children you’re caring for, families of serving personnel face unique challenges that can be difficult to navigate.

Deployment, in particular, can put pressure on your mental health and wellbeing, any you may find that you need some extra support.

If you find it difficult to cope with deployment, try putting these tips into practice the next time your loved one goes away.

1.  Prepare in the build up: Sit down and discuss important things with your family member before they are deployed, including how they can help you, how you can help them and ways of staying in contact while they are away. If you live with a partner and have children, also plan ahead to try and make your life easier when your partner is deployed. You could batch cook meals to keep in your freezer, organise extra child care, or avoid any additional responsibilities.
   
2. Prioritise and focus: A lot of things will be uncertain and out of your control, so try to prioritise and focus on the things that you can manage. Journalling can help with understanding what you can control or need to prioritise. If you become overwhelmed by thinking about what’s outside your control, try a breathing exercise, take a break and do something different, picture yourself somewhere you feel calm or try a grounding exercise.
   
   
3. Use a countdown tool: Countdown tools can be massively helpful to supporting anyone, but particularly children through a deployment. For example, the ‘A sweet a day’ is where you calculate how many days someone is going to be away for, add that amount of sweets to the jar and then eat one a day. If you’d rather not use sweets as a countdown, you can change it to almost anything you’d like. Perhaps a small present a week, or 10p a day, or even a message from your family member that they write out before they are deployed.
   
   
4. Connect with other friends and family members: Try to use any spare time you have to connect with loved ones. Perhaps you have friends or family who are also going through something similar to you. Or, you’re living in an area with other military families that you can build new friendships with and lean on when your loved one is away.
   
   
5. Ask for help if you need it: Remember, there is no right or wrong way to feel about deployment and it’s ok if you need extra support to help navigate it - whether this is from a loved one, through family networks where your partner is serving, or professional help and services like Anchoring Minds. Anchoring Minds provides wellbeing and mental health support for Royal Navy and Royal Marine families when they need it. From a friendly chat with someone who understands what you’re going through, to access to peer support groups and free resources to improve your wellbeing.
   

If you’re a military partner, child or parent who needs extra support managing the challenges that come with living with serving personnel, visit our Anchoring Minds page for further tips, advice and support.