Tag Archives: VA

Sea of Goodwill Series: Teaming Up to Help the Military Community Successfully Steer Through the Sea of Goodwill

Posted on by Devin

“The transition is the hardest part,” says Veteran Steven Pater when discussing the switch from military to civilian life in a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Those Leaving Military Can Use an Assist.  However, the search for help with that transition can also be daunting, even overwhelming.

The recent white paper, Sea of Goodwill: Matching the Donor to the Need, released by the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimates  over 400,000 service organizations nationwide are dedicated to making the reintegration back home easier for the military community (active duty, Guard, Reserve, Veterans, and family members).  These service groups take many forms including faith-based, public, fee-for-service, non-profit, local, regional, and national organizations.

With this abundance, members of the military community are continuously faced with the same question: How can I access the right service when I need it and where I live?  How do I know if it is good?

It is the responsibility of those serving our military community to work together to answer this question.  We need to deliver a transparent system of access points to credible, dependable, and consistent information about available resources.  As consumers and recipients of these services, it is vital that military community members have “a voice” in shaping and sustaining this network.

Cooperation and communication across the sea of goodwill is critical:  “We, as a nation, must build key partnerships and link national and local community efforts…to work as a team and provide the highest level of quality of our veterans, Service members and their families deserve.” (Sea of Goodwill: Matching the Donor to the Need).  Ultimately, all of us serving the military community have one goal in mind: easing the transition of military community members back into civilian life.

Veterans Program a Success with Colorado Springs Veterans

Posted on by Devin

Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group’s Peer Navigator program is successfully helping veterans with making their way through the often confusing world of VA benefits and healthcare.   The group connects veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) experts in cutting through the red tape and getting the services these veterans need.  Kevin Porter, director of public affairs for the organization, says “A few hundred Colorado veterans have benefited from the program so far.”   The program provides a “friendly face” to guide former military personnel and their families through the transition back to the civilian world.

This program stands out from other programs because of its immediate response to the requests for help.  “Our peer navigator, if you’re at church if you’re at home or you’re at a bar, they’re dispatched to that location, just like an ambulance would be,” says Porter.  This program gives veterans hope for their futures as citizens in the country they defended.

For more on this recent success story view the full article.

Do you have experience with this or other VA programs for the Colorado Springs area?  Click here.

Facebook Twitter

Find us on the National Resource Directory

Posted on by Chris

The Warrior Gateway is now among the 11,000+ resources listed in the National Resource Directory, the joint DoD-Labor-VA program that catalogs on- and offline resources for the military community.

The NRD has recently been revamped and redesigned to make it easier to search for resources. Try it out by searching for the Warrior Gateway!

Facebook Twitter

When pain is too much: noncombat injuries

Posted on by Chris

The Houston Chronicle has a good piece on the recent increase in noncombat injuries related to neck, back, and joint problems. While most wartime injuries are associated with combat or IED detonations, an increasing number of service members in the VA health system are found to be suffering from neck, back, or joint pain, which results from accidents or overuse. In fact, “A recent Johns Hopkins study found that the top reasons for medical evacuation from Iraq and Afghanistan are musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, not combat injuries.”

Anthony Clark was honorably discharged with injuries to his back, knee, shoulder and neck. Photo courtesy Houston Chronicle

“As equipment gets more complicated and more sophisticated, there’s a cost that we have to pay to protect you better, but this is the indirect cost,” said Dr. Steven Cohen, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins and director of pain research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Untreated musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders can combine with post traumatic stress, depression or other injuries to become more severe over time, negatively affecting a veteran’s quality of life, Cohen said.

“That’s why early and aggressive treatment of pain is important,” he said.

Read the full article here.

BENS releases ‘Veterans Integration’ report

Posted on by Chris

At the “Path to Healthy Homecomings” conference held in Feb 2009, a number of organizations came together to discuss the problems facing service members transitioning out of the military–namely, that while myriad resources exist for the military community, there are numerous obstacles that prevent easy discovery of and access to these resources.

As a result of the questions raised at this conference, BENS (Business Executives for National Security), Booz-Allen Hamilton, and Gallup teamed up to perform a study looking at challenges facing veterans at the state and local levels, specifically through the eyes of State Directors of Veterans Affairs (SDVA).

The study was undertaken by conducting interviews with 21 SDVAs. The interviews sought to shed light on some of the following questions:

  • Where are the gaps between veterans’ needs and services?
  • Why do those gaps exist?
  • How can our nation best address them?

 

Veterans Reintegration

 

The study concluded with a report entitled Veterans Reintegration: A View from the States.  Following is an excerpt from the report:

While the study reveals that veterans initiatives at all levels need additional resources, it is also true that as a nation, the United States already devotes enormous resources to veterans’ issues. But reintegration doesn’t occur at a national level. It happens at the community level. And so key to addressing reintegration challenges is identifying and quantifying the needs in specific regions and communities, and then ensuring that appropriate resources are made available and communicated to veterans in a timely manner.

These goals can be accomplished through greater collaboration and partnership among reintegration stakeholders—at all levels of government and within all sectors of society—that have shared?mission responsibilities to assist our nation’s veterans. This will require moving beyond the traditional lines of communication and authority to determine how the varying needs of veterans in different regions and communities can best be served, and then applying resources to bring about the necessary changes.

You can view or download the report by clicking the image above or by clicking here. It’s a worthwhile read and presents some very valuable conclusions on the situation facing our returning service members. The findings of the study were in fact instrumental in driving the creation of the Warrior Gateway. Feel free to read it, share it with your colleagues, and let us know what you think by leaving a comment or by contacting us.