Dr. Patricia Lester

Patricia Lester is an assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry and the director of Families Overcoming Under Stress (FOCUS), a resiliency training program that is designed to help families that are experience high levels of stress, at the University of California Los Angeles. Lester and her research colleagues studied more than 270 children, their at-home civilian parents and their military parents. Military members were either currently deployed or had recently returned from a deployment. The researchers examined the potential impact of cumulative deployment, and found that children "showed considerable resilience as indicated by emotional and behavioral adjustment comparable to published community norms" (Lester, et al., 2010). Additionally, a study that compared the prevalence and severity of behavioral and emotional symptoms of school-aged children in military families has found that children show remarkable resilience when faced with the stressors of deployment. The study, "The Long War and Parental Combat Deployment: Effects on Military Children and At-Home Spouses," (Lester, et al., 2010).