Are OKs are really OK? Annita wants to find out
Are OKs are really OK? Annita wants to find out
1 February 2022
Captain Annita Allman studies the survey data to help her look into the effect frequent moves have on the mental health of her colleagues’ children across the country.
While many people took a well-earned break over the Christmas/New Year period, Captain Annita Allman pored over about 100 questionnaires filled out by the children of Salvation Army officers.
These children are often referred to as Officers’ Kids, or OKs, and many of them experience several moves during their childhood as their parents respond to appointment changes. The questionnaire was part of a survey that sought to reveal the mental health impact those moves had on OKs.
Responses were sought in two categories: officer parents were invited to complete a survey with their children if they were under 18, while the 18 to 30-year-olds completed their own questionnaire.
Annita, the Corps Officer at Castlemaine in Victoria’s goldfields region, holds a Bachelor of Theology and a Graduate Certificate in Children and Families Ministry. She has until June to complete her thesis, which is backed by Eva Booth College and a $1000 grant, and present a paper to Victoria’s University of Divinity.
She said she also hoped to have the findings published in an international peer-reviewed international journal “because there’s a huge gap in the research at the moment”.
Annita said there was limited published information in Australia on the impact that regular moves made on ministers’ children. “There’s actually nothing on Salvation Army officer children,” she said.
Most published information was on the children of American ministers or those of missionaries. “That research tends to focus on the impact of transitioning back to a home country that perhaps they may not have lived in for 15 years and suddenly find themselves in a very foreign environment, which is supposed to be home,” Annita said.
Spiritual well-being
Annita said the Army recently commissioned research into the spiritual well-being of OKs. That research was done by Eva Burrows College’s Major Sandra MacDonald, who has the title of First Five Years of Officership and Auxiliary-Lieutenant Development Coordinator.
She said she hoped her research would produce “a series of recommendations” the Army could use to “help improve things for all OKs so that when they have to move, those transitions won’t be quite so traumatic, disrupting, and damaging as many have been in the past”.
Annita and her husband, Captain David Allman, have two daughters, aged 22 and 18, both of whom struggled in their well-being and faith after “a difficult move”.
“From my own experience, what I’ve read for my literature review and the responses to the surveys that I’ve looked at already, the evidence is that multiple moves have a significant impact on children,” Annita said.
In 2019, EBC sought expressions of interest from graduate students in doing this research and Annita was selected.
“My research and Sandra’s minor thesis, which was submitted to the University of Divinity in 2020, are a direct result of an OK expressing concerns to Commissioners Floyd and Tracey Tidd (former territorial commanders of Australia),” Annita said.
“The project was interrupted last year due to COVID-19, along with not being able to keep up with the demands of study, a new corps appointment, and coordinating the community food relief project all at the same time.”
Early findings indicate that having to move communities and schools and leaving friends has a significant impact on many OKs’ ability to interact socially.
“Even as adults, some struggle to make friends or feel settled anywhere,” she said. “It’s important information to get out there to officers about the impact of our work on our children.”
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