Serving Those Who Serve Us: YoungWilliams Proud to Support Military Families

Each November, along with the rest of the nation, YoungWilliams celebrates Military Family Appreciation Month. Our projects have custom designed services for all branches of service and for military members at all career stages.

North Carolina

Active-duty military families can spend a large portion of their time on base. They live, work, and shop – all on base. Recognizing this, in 2016, our Onslow County Office teamed with the Onslow County Department of Social Services, the Onslow County Health Department, and the leadership of Camp Lejeune to open a satellite office aboard the Tarawa Terrace military housing unit. The goal of the collaboration was to enhance access and convenience for military members. The resulting satellite office is the first of its kind on any military installation in North Carolina. The office has become a valuable resource for base contractors, too.

“Many military members deploy from Camp Lejeune,” said Jeremy Smith, Vice President over the North Carolina Project. “We can help those members make sure their child support case is in good shape before they leave, giving them one less thing to worry about.”

YoungWilliams personnel staff this office, and it is open on Mondays for appointments and walk-ins. Through this office, service members and their families can seek services to establish paternity through genetic testing, establish and enforce orders for child support and medical assistance, and receive help on intergovernmental cases. We provide full services to both service members and civilians.

Our Onslow County office is also an active member with TASCO (Turning Adversity into Success for Children in Onslow). The TASCO outreach team works with developing resiliency strategies for the military children that live in Onslow County. In addition, the Onslow County office is an active member of the Wounded Warrior Battalion-East Family Readiness Learning Series. The host of this meeting has asked our office to present in front of active-duty personal multiple time through a virtual learning series and start presenting in person in November of 2022.

Our office supplies items for the annual Veterans Stand Down Event to support homeless veterans in multiple North Carolina counties. YoungWilliams staff attend the event by representing our North Carolina Child Support Offices. Further, our office works with Family Readiness by attending their Readiness and Transition Resource Fair, where our employees advise military men and women on the transition to civilian life

Colorado

The El Paso County Child Support Services Office (El Paso CSS) is actively involved at Fort Carson, a nearby Army base spanning El Paso and three other nearby counties. On Tuesday afternoons, our El Paso County Outreach Supervisor sets up a mobile command station. Our weekly station serves as a general outlet for service members to gain insight on what services the El Paso CSS Office provides. We also make this station available for anyone to obtain information on the child support program and related processes. We email child support application and modification packets to our visitors upon request and follow up with them to make sure they have received the needed materials. We also print any materials our visitors may need in hard copy.

Other Work with Military Families Nationwide

In addition to our work in North Carolina and Colorado, we also support our military parents in other offices throughout the country. For instance, we:

• Work closely with members of the Air Force and their families in our Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Omaha, Nebraska offices; and
• Support a nonprofit organization called Operation Stand Down Nashville, Inc. in our Nashville office. This organization coordinates with more than 50 Nashville organizations to present an annual event called Operation Stand Down that provides both housed and homeless veterans an opportunity to reengage with the child support system.

It’s an honor to serve those who serve. We are pleased to be able to provide our services to military families, and we will continue finding creative ways to educate and empower military families and their children.