The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2016 21 Taking On Family Member Employment. Really! FOCUS ON CAREER DIPLOMACY TODAY Debra Blome is a former associate editor of The Foreign Service Journal. She currently lives in Jerusalem with her husband, FSO Donald Blome, and their family. In her more than 20 years as an EFM, Debra has tried all the employment options: she has worked inside the mission, on the local economy and as an independent contractor for a U.S. orga- nization. She has also spent many hours as a volunteer when paid employment was unavailable. F or eligible family members (EFMs) in the Foreign Service, the process of finding employment isn’t easy and never has been. The reasons are obvious: frequent moves, language barriers and limited options, to name just a few. But what is new is that the Foreign Ser- vice has now tasked itself with really doing something about it. Compare how the issue was treated in the State Depart- ment and U.S. Agency for International Development’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. The first- ever QDDR, released in 2010, devoted an entire chapter to Family member employment is a critical issue for members of the U.S. Foreign Service. The State Department finally seems to be taking it seriously. BY DEBRA BLOME “Working Smarter”—without ever mentioning family member employment. The new QDDR, released in April 2015, discusses expanding opportunities for family member employment as part of the section titled “Adapting our Organizations to Take Care of Our People.” “Two-career families are increasingly the norm in both Amer- ican society and in the Foreign Service,” the report states. “This means that ensuring opportunities for spousal employment should be an integral part of our plans to retain and motivate staff.” The report says State and USAID will strengthen efforts to build EFM career tracks, use EFMs to fill existing staffing gaps when possible, and create a database of EFM skills to help spouses find jobs both at post and in Washington. It also pledges that State and USAID will expand programs already in existence, and will “pursue mechanisms” to facilitate the security clearance process, so EFMs can begin work at post without a “lengthy” delay. (Though the QDDR document is a product of State and USAID, the EFM policies and reforms it calls for apply to employ- ees of all the foreign affairs agencies under chief-of-mission authority on an assignment abroad.)