The unprecedented scope of current demands on the U.S. military and reserves has caught the allied mental health systems, both within the DOD and in civilian venues, without the necessary infrastructure, depth of knowledge about trauma, or formal mechanisms for outreach in place to address the magnitude of mental health concerns that have emerged among service members. These shortcomings have been especially apparent where the needs of young children and their families are concerned. The mobilization of these systems to address the needs of traumatized soldiers who are also parents of young children must be informed by evidence. The proposed research seeks to describe the impact of PTSD on the service member¿s relationship with his or her young child, and to understand parenting stress and the related needs of family members during the process of reintegration of service members returning to young children. With findings specific to the current military context, a developmentally relevant and risk-specific intervention can be developed that will mitigate the potentially devastating impact of soldier PTSD on the developmental trajectory of very young children. Given current estimates from the Department of Defense regarding the number of children with an active duty parent, and the ongoing nature of current war operations in Iraq, an astounding number of young children stand to be affected by the effects of warzone-related trauma in a parent, and by deployment separation. Thus, the proposed research seeks to (1) understand the needs of service members with PTSD and their partners in their parenting roles with young children during the delicate reintegration process of the deployment cycle, and (2) develop and test a family-based intervention designed to mitigate the impact of war zone-related PTSD in soldiers on the parent-child relationship. The findings from this research will illuminate the impact of soldier war zone-related trauma on the parent-child relationship and will result in the development and testing of an evidence-informed and developmentally-relevant intervention for soldier parents with PTSD and their young children. Successful intervention strategies for families with very young children can then be disseminated widely, in both military and non-military populations.