getting your family ready to go

In making a decision to move to a UN family duty station, or field mission where families can accompany the staff member, there are a number of issues which need to be carefully considered. Whether you are moving alone or with your family, it is essential that you get as much information as possible about the new location. What does it look like? What is the climate? What is the culture like? What are the laws and values? Are there security issues? Is there a suitable education system? What is the housing situation? What about food, entertainment? You will also need to carefully consider your current situation. If you own your home what will happen to it? Can you ship your furniture? And so on.

nce you have gathered as much information as you can about the new situation discuss it with your family members. Remember, the more information everyone has, the easier it will be to integrate into the new situation. The less informed any member of the family is, the greater the potential for unhappiness. So it is in everyone"s best interest that all are well informed about what to expect. When you think you are ready, complete the evaluation below. The results may help you and your family make decisions that will work best for all of you and identify some actions that will make the experience easier to manage and ultimately more successful.

FAMILY READINESS TO MOVE EVALUATION^*

On the Family Readiness to Move Evaluation below, rate each of the items under the following headings on a scale of -5 to + 5 with +5 meaning you feel very positive with that factor in your new location, -5 meaning you feel that factor is problematic in the new location and 0 meaning that you have no feelings one way or the other about that item. If you don"t have any information about an item put a question mark (?) beside it. If an item does not apply put NA in the rating column. At the end of the evaluation you can make a note of all those items with question marks. These are areas where you may want to gather more information.

It is recommended that the ratings be done after discussion as a family group but the actual rating should be given by you and your partner either together or each doing a separate evaluation and then averaging the scores.

Try to give your first reaction as you read through the items. The more negatively you feel about an item, the more negative the score. When you finish, total up all the scores for each factor (see the factor rating scale to the right), then add the section scores on the scoring sheet to get your overall score.