Former Bristol resident Kathryn Weaver has been named Armed Forces Insurance Ft. Meade Military Spouse of the Year, in recognition of her work with special needs and medically complex families in the military.

She is currently stationed with her husband, Petty Officer 1st Class George Weaver, at Ft. Meade, Maryland. ET1 Weaver has served in the United States Navy for 8 years and has deployed four times in that time.

Weaver has devoted her time during her husband's service to helping support and empower military families navigating a spouse or child of an active duty service member with a medical or developmental diagnosis.

Working with this population is close to Weaver’s heart.

“As a parent of two children, both with medically complex and developmental diagnoses, I understand the need for a strong community, advocacy, awareness, and self education that it takes to help navigate through military life with such impactful diagnoses,” she said. “So I aim to help families like mine learn to navigate this side of military family life.”

According to Weaver, because of her children’s unique diagnoses, seeking out appropriate care can be a struggle. While they were stationed in Italy for a time, ET1 Weaver was reassigned to Ft. Meade so the family could take advantage of the medical care available at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Weaver works closely with families enrolled into a military program known as EFMP, Exceptional Families of the Military, that works to help families navigate medical care and services. She serves as the sole administrator of the EFMP Family Resource Group at the family's military installation where she helps inform, educate and encourage advocacy and empowerment of EFMP families.

Recently, Weaver contributed to the foundation of a disability-friendly, accessible and inclusive sensory play group that serves as a place where these children and families can come to connect, play and build community. Weaver is currently working toward opportunities to help fund events for EFMP families. In her most recent work, she has been attempting to effect change in the way the military health care system supports EFMP families.

From early December through late January, some 20,000 nominations for this prestigious award were received. Winners like Weaver, celebrated for their military community engagement, leadership, community enhancement efforts, will all be celebrated on May 9, National Military Spouse Appreciation Day, when the ultimate Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year will be announced during a special luncheon in Arlington, Va.

Both Kathryn and George were graduates of the Mt. Hope High School class of 2015, and it is Mt. Hope’s teachers whom Kathryn credits with much of the reason she is on the leadership path that she has chosen.

“I struggled a bit in school, and there were countless teachers at Mt. Hope stepping up and pushing me to be the best Version of myself that I could be,” she said.

To learn more about Weaver and the other base winners, please visit www.msoy.afi.org.