Patricia Montes Barron has recommendation for her successor on the Protection Division: “No matter you do, even when you need to get a bit photograph and put it in your desk, don’t overlook who you’re working for.
“It’s these households that depend on us to not solely do effectively by them, however to hearken to them and alter course when we have to.”
When Barron got here on board as head of DOD’s navy neighborhood and household coverage 4 years in the past, she pledged to carry extra navy household voices to DOD. That included her personal voice, as an Military spouse who moved along with her now-retired husband 14 occasions in 30 years. And he or she integrated these voices in some ways, from hiring extra active-duty spouses to work on the workforce, to taking motion on considerations and questions raised by households.
An instance of her persistence on that entrance is her deal with one problem raised by an Military spouse in early 2021, shortly after Barron was sworn in to her new place. Barron was nonetheless working to get that problem resolved when she left the administration earlier this month, she informed Navy Instances in an interview shortly earlier than leaving.
Optimistic change ‘takes time’
In commentary revealed in Navy Instances in 2021, that Military spouse, Frances Tilney Burke, made a seemingly easy request: Discover a approach for navy dad and mom to register their baby for baby care electronically when transferring from one set up to a different.
Whereas DOD’s MilitaryChildCare.com website permits households to get on baby care waitlists earlier than they transfer, the problem is that folks nonetheless should bodily
go into the kid improvement middle to fill out the registration paperwork. That was an instance of a bigger problem, Burke wrote.
“Will the brand new [deputy assistant secretary] acknowledge such eternally irritating navy household roadblocks and search change, or will she keep complacent … And languish inside an already recalcitrant system?” she wrote.
Like all suggestions from navy households Barron has obtained, “I took it to coronary heart. We’re listening,” she stated.
However, as she has realized, “It’s very difficult to get issues performed within the Pentagon. I didn’t know that once I first received right here.”
Digital registration might need appeared like a easy request, however protection officers should cope with a number of info expertise platforms that don’t essentially speak to one another.
“Every of the companies has their very own, and it’s simply not simple. You virtually should create this entire new platform in order that it will probably go from one place to a different,” Barron defined. “That’s one of many issues they’ve been attempting to get after … modernizing the best way that we speak to one another electronically.
“But it surely takes time,” she added.
Whereas Barron didn’t see that answer grow to be actuality throughout her tenure, “I’ll see it someday within the close to future,” she stated. “Although it might need taken us four-plus years to get there, we’re completely near getting there.”
That’s simply certainly one of many points Barron and her workforce have labored on during the last 4 years. The navy neighborhood and household coverage workforce oversees the insurance policies and applications for navy households from cradle to grave — to incorporate baby care; partner employment applications; commissaries and exchanges; morale, welfare and recreation applications, corresponding to sports activities, leisure and cultural actions; household violence prevention and response; distinctive member of the family applications; non-medical counseling; casualty help and mortuary affairs; and a number of different tasks.
Barron stated she was amazed on the quantity of ardour and dedication the workforce has to the mission and the work, and he or she believes each particular person on her workforce was capable of transfer the needle on their particular problem.
“When you’ve got the form of assist from the very prime, as within the secretary of protection specializing in folks and taking good care of our folks, there’s an terrible lot we will do this possibly earlier than didn’t appear attainable,” she stated.

Progress for navy dad and mom, spouses
With the assistance Congress, former Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin’s “taking good care of folks” focus and the highlight of former First Woman Jill Biden’s Becoming a member of Forces initiative, Barron and her workforce have drilled down into some options that may make a distinction in a variety of areas.
If there’s one factor Barron hopes continues into future administrations, she stated, it’s a robust deal with folks.
One of many workplace’s greatest accomplishments involving baby care underneath Barron’s management was chipping away at baby care shortages, which have been exacerbated due to the pandemic. On account of a wide range of efforts, the general waitlists for baby improvement facilities have been diminished by 55%, Barron stated.
Her workplace elevated pay and different incentives to recruit and retain baby care workers and restructure positions to offer extra alternatives for development.
In addition they helped double the variety of navy dad and mom who’re capable of get their baby care charges diminished with certified suppliers of their civilian communities. Officers did so by discovering that about 20% extra civilian baby care suppliers had met the requirements for navy baby care price help subsidies because of some states growing their requirements for his or her baby care workforce.
In its work for navy spouses, the workplace grew employment alternatives. The partner unemployment fee, primarily based on DOD surveys of spouses, has held regular for some time at round 20% to 21%. However Barron famous that over the previous decade, it has moved from 25% down to twenty%.
“It’s not nice, however we’re making incremental motion,” Barron stated.
The workplace elevated the variety of navy spouses eligible for the $4,000 scholarships within the My Profession Development Account program, referred to as MyCAA. The scholarships enable spouses to pursue a license, certification or affiliate diploma, or pay for testing for faculty credit score and persevering with schooling models. Eligibility was opened to spouses of service members within the ranks of E-7, E-8, E-9,and W-3. Beforehand, this system was open to spouses of E-1 to E-6, W-1 and W-2, and O-1 to O-3.

Barron’s favourite initiative total, she stated, is the Navy Partner Profession Accelerator Pilot, which started in 2023 and thru which 900 spouses up to now have been positioned in 12-week fellowships with non-public employers. DOD pays every partner’s wage through the fellowship, with the understanding there could also be a job supply on the finish. Over 80% of the partner fellows get everlasting job gives, Barron stated, including that the preliminary thought required some “actually arduous” considering on the a part of her employees.
On the finish of January, one other 200 employers are anticipated to hitch the Navy Partner Employment Partnership, including to the greater than 850 employers who’ve dedicated to hiring navy spouses and are vetted by DOD officers. Barron’s workplace has been shoring up their techniques to carry these employers accountable, she stated, which incorporates checking in with them quarterly to guage whether or not they’re actively searching for, hiring and retaining spouses. Barron encourages navy spouses to verify they full their profile within the MSEP portal in order that employers will attain out.
‘It wasn’t simple’
Barron has labored carefully with different places of work within the Pentagon on people-centered points, too, and hopes that sort of collaboration will proceed.
“I’ll inform you that it wasn’t simple to return right into a constructing just like the Pentagon … to be part of the Division of Protection that’s so extremely difficult, and be taught what I wanted to be taught, and maintain my very own, and advocate and battle for the issues that we felt have been necessary,” she stated.
Household advocates who spoke about Barron to Navy Instances praised her for her work.
“I’m grateful she at all times stored households first. She by no means overlooked households, and I can think about how tough the day-to-day could be,” stated Shannon Razsadin, CEO of Navy Household Advisory Community. “She at all times stored households as her north star. She has in each a part of her life.”

Barron had years of expertise as an advocate in nonprofits for navy households lengthy earlier than working on the Pentagon. Her resume consists of serving as the pinnacle of the household readiness directorate on the Affiliation of the USA Military, working as director of outreach for navy household initiatives at Zero to Three and directing youth initiatives on the Nationwide Navy Household Affiliation, the place she oversaw NMFA’s Operation Purple Camp program.
“I feel the largest motive why I used to be profitable, moreover the truth that there was an unbelievable workforce that was doing all of the arduous work, is that I used to be additionally linked to the navy spouses who have been at the moment serving, and those who had served, due to the work that I had performed earlier than,” Barron stated. “I made it a degree to verify we didn’t lose that connection, that we at all times reached out to say, ‘How are we doing? Did we get that proper? What do you suppose?’”
If Barron had one other 12 months within the job, she would prioritize bettering the workplace’s use of information and limiting bureaucratic pink tape, she stated.
Although she’s out of time in her submit, Barron described it as “the primary expertise” of her life.
“This has crammed my coronary heart like you don’t have any thought,” Barron stated. “I’m only a regular, common navy partner. I adopted my soldier for 30 years, received into the advocacy [work]. I by no means thought I’d be sitting on this seat – and but, right here I’m. I encourage different navy spouses to observe swimsuit.”
Karen has lined navy households, high quality of life and client points for Navy Instances for greater than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media protection of navy households within the guide “A Battle Plan for Supporting Navy Households.” She beforehand labored for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.