Army is 600 mental health providers short

Under the program, the Army increased its mental-health specialists-to-soldiers ratio to 1-to-600 -- though regulations require only a 1-to-700 ratio -- to provide treatment in combat theaters, McHugh said. Still, the Army is 600 mental health providers short of its overall requirement of 4,304, he said.

Soldiers, Families Top Army Priorities, Leaders Say
By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2010 – Funding programs to support soldiers and their families is the Army’s top priority in the new fiscal year, the service’s secretary and chief of staff told a Senate panel today.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh, a former Congress member who served on the House Armed Services Committee, returned to Capitol Hill today to give his assessment of where the Army stands and where it needs to go.

“I found an Army clearly fatigued by nearly nine years of combat,” McHugh told the Senate Armed Service Committee. “But through it all, they are more resilient.”

To sustain and improve that resilience, McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. spoke for the need to improve soldiers’ “dwell time” at home between deployments, as well as Army family support and mental health programs.

“We remain out of balance,” McHugh said. “Our all-volunteer force is a national treasure. If we wish to sustain it, soldiers and their families must be our top priority. For those of us in the Army family, it is the top priority.”

The Defense Department’s fiscal 2011 budget request includes $1.7 billion to fund what McHugh called “vital” family programs such as those to provide respite care and spousal employment, and to open some 50 child-care centers and seven youth centers.

“We sign up the soldier, we re-sign up the family,” McHugh said.

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http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58063