Give An Hour expands to help Hurricane Sandy First Responders and survivors

She secures treatment for vets' invisible wounds
November 28, 2012
By Catherine Laughlin
For The Inquirer

The unkempt man was wearing fatigues, standing in the street and holding a sign that read, "Vietnam vet. Please help. God bless."

The year was 2005 and Barbara Van Dahlen, a licensed clinical psychologist, was driving with her then-9-year-old daughter, who asked why the man was begging in the world's richest country.

It was a moment that helped propel Van Dahlen into her official mission, the founding that year of Give an Hour, a national nonprofit providing free mental health services to military personnel and their families affected by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other post-9/11 conflicts. (Give an Hour recently expanded to include victims and first responders dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.) Since 2007, Van Dahlen has mobilized 6,500 licensed professionals, who have given away 70,000 hours of therapy set up through giveanhour.org.

The organization runs on a $1.5 million budget - grants, sponsorships, and private donations - with 17 employees who help train providers. In addition, hundreds of volunteers counsel at schools, and take part in suicide-prevention conferences and other outreach organizations.
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Veterans heal mentally with rock 'n' roll

Veterans heal mentally with rock 'n' roll
BY DAN GERINGER
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Staff Writer

JERRY GRANTLAND grew up in Lansdowne, enlisted in the Army right out of Cardinal O'Hara High School, deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was on reconnaissance patrol in an armored personnel carrier when a roadside bomb exploded.

He wasn't wounded physically. But after eight months of hypervigilance in Iraq, always ready to run for cover from frequent mortar attacks, Grantland came home to a National Guard assignment in Texas, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I was driving 75 miles-an-hour on I-10 when I saw a couple of guys at the side of the road who looked like they were duct-taping something to the guardrail," said Grantland, now 28 and living in Roxborough.

"I slammed on my brakes and walked across three lanes of interstate highway toward them before I said to myself, 'You're an idiot. They're not taping a bomb to the guardrail.' I walked back to my car."

The "Bands of Brothers" concert will support Give an Hour, a national network of 6,500 licensed mental-health professionals who provide free therapy to veterans with PTSD and their families through giveanhour.org.

"No one's going to get kicked off the island on 'Bands of Brothers,' " said Give an Hour's founder, Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen. "The focus is on music and on healing."

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Florida vets with PTSD need boosted grass-roots response

Post-traumatic stress disorder takes a 'village'
Florida vets with PTSD need boosted grass-roots response.


In a long overdue move, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials took shears to the red tape that tangled up veterans pursuing disability benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Noncombat veterans who served in war zones no longer need produce backing documents or buddies to vouch for a specific event that triggered their PTSD. Now, it's presumed that a combat-zone veteran's claim of PTSD is service-connected.

Certainly, the VA would have made an even bigger splash had it also lightened the load of its understaffed ranks of mental-health professionals by blessing PTSD diagnoses from private-sector therapists.

Still, relaxing the claims process is progress. Progress that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki insists "goes a long way to ensure that veterans receive the benefits and services they need."

If only that were wholly true. While nearly 20 percent of troops in our two current wars struggle with PTSD, fewer than half ever seek treatment, according to a 2008 RAND Corp. study. The lingering stigma attached to mental-health counseling is partly to blame. But so is the VA's struggle to trot out trained counselors fast enough to keep pace with the mounting need.

In a recent assessment, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command researchers (using a strict definition of PTSD) found symptoms severe enough to cause "serious functional impairment" in 10 percent of Iraq War veterans. A disturbing figure, considering more than 1 million U.S. troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.

With Florida already home to America's third-largest veteran population — and growing — more citizens must enlist in the state's grass-roots army of helpers that stand ready to help vets battle PTSD.

Fortunately, grass-roots groups like Give an Hour have begun filling Florida's gaps. The nonprofit recruits mental-health therapists around the country who donate an hour of counseling to veterans.

"Unfortunately, the tremendous number of people affected makes it impossible for the military alone to respond adequately to the mental-health needs in its greater community," says psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen, founder and president of Give an Hour.
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Florida vets with PTSD need boosted grass-roots response


UPDATE
Reading the Sentinel there was a comment in the Letters to the Editor section with the title "Veteran doubts PTSD is authentic disorder." It makes me want to scream every time I hear someone make such a claim. It is not that they don't understand but more a case of they just don't want to know. That's the biggest problem with people having the ability to learn but refusing to do it. It's a lot easier to just say something isn't real than to invest some time in learning what the truth is.

I've been tracking this since 1982. PTSD is as real as it gets and there is a reason for it. You could have three people in the same exact place at the same exact time and find all three have different things going through their minds. One will thank God it wasn't them and walk away soon afterward forgetting all about the feelings felt in that one moment of trauma. Another will be more touched by it finding it harder to just get over, but eventually, the feelings are gone and life goes on. For the other, they take it all in, more than just a passing moment for them but it is the life changing moment when all they felt, all they believed in, all they trusted was obliterated. They walk away with the emotions they felt for themselves and the pain they felt for the other people in that traumatic event. They are not weaker than the others but their emotions are stronger, able to feel things more deeply, sensitive, caring, compassionate, beyond what the others are able to feel.

When you hear a veteran denying the reality of PTSD, it is also because they have not heard enough about it. The numbers are staggering right now because of the fact the Army released a study years ago about the increased risk of PTSD being raised by 50% for each time they are sent back. Many of our veterans have been sent back 3-4-5 times increasing their risk more and more. The other factor is the general public is more aware of PTSD, so fewer suffer in silence and there are more reports than every before. It's not that the troops have grown weaker, but communication has grown stronger. We know about more of them than we did during all other wars this nation has fought.

If you watched Ken Burns, The War, you would have heard WWII veterans talking about their own wound we now call PTSD, but for them it was "shell shock" and there was little help for them with even less information. This is a big reason why people are astounded by the reported numbers. It's no longer a secret veterans felt they needed to keep secret and now they know there is nothing to be ashamed of. It has more to do with the fact their character was so strong they could not walk away and just get over it.

When no one wants to cover price of war

2001, troops sent into Afghanistan. 2003 troops sent into Iraq. No one wanted to pay higher taxes to pay for either one. No one wanted to really support the troops we sent by paying for any of it. President Bush didn't even have these wars in his budget and continually asked for supplemental emergency funds. Some in congress were asking for more funding for the VA to care for the increased need while others were pointing to the two wars needing more funding as an excuse to not gear up the VA to deal with the increased demand. Funding for the VA came last on the things to do list almost as if the wounded were totally forgotten about. This continued despite the fact medical advances left more surviving horrific injuries, thus creating more wounded survivors needing care.

Contractors managed to take the spotlight and bulk of the funding. The troops had to deal with what they had to do their jobs with, scavenging for metal to protect their vehicles because no one thought to order the up armored Humvees or the fortified new design to deflect road side bombs. They came last.

It always seems we claim to have no limits when it comes to defense of this nation, at the same time, we have no desire to spend it on the men and women we send.

But the burden and blame is not all on the citizens of this nation. It is on the shoulders of the media as well. When you stop and think about what they can accomplish when they want to, it leaves us wondering where their priorities are.

Remember the coverage dedicated to Haiti after the earthquake and what resulted from the devotion to cover the suffering? Hundreds of millions of dollars flooded in along with aid workers volunteering to step up. Over 200,000 dead, millions homeless, wounded and in need of everything to stay alive with. Their stories touched all of us because we saw their eyes, heard their cries and we saw humans just like us suffering. We knew we could help because we were told we could and how we could help.

Well, here we have more servicemen and women committing suicide because they are not getting the care they need. Attempted suicides have gone up in the military. Divorces have gone up. All the suffering has gone up but most Americans have no clue. The media has not taken the same kind of attitude to cover this crisis as they have with scandals, politics, celebrities or how ketchup is now being packaged differently so that you can dunk into it or squirt it out. (NBC had this last week.) There always seems to be yet one more crisis more important than what is happening to the men and women we send to fight our battles.

Add up the suicides of our veterans starting with the 18 taking their own lives today, then multiply them over the last nine years but you better factor in the 12,000 attempted suicides every year as well. Don't stop there because those are veterans and we have active military committing suicide at higher numbers every year as well. Don't stop there either because with those numbers come the families left behind.

Here we have an interview Al Jazeera did with Give An Hour's founder Barbara Van Dahlen. Ever wonder why an organization like this would be needed if we really lived up to the claim about supporting the troops and caring for our veterans? Why would there be a need for mental health workers to give up the kind of money they make if we were any good at really taking care of them? Then after you read this article or watch the video interview, ask yourself when the last time it was you heard any of what is being said on CNN, MSNBC or FOX.

Where is the coverage of this crisis in our communities as National Guards and Reservists come home to an oblivious neighborhood? Where is it as the men and women in the military return to bases trying to recover from one deployment while another one waits for them hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles appearing to be safe back on US soil but nonetheless still in danger? Why don't they report on any of this more than just a story here or there when this is a huge crisis that does not need to be happening?

No one wants to pay for war but when it comes to the men and women we send, they seem to be the only ones paying for all of it with body, blood, spirit along with everyone in their lives. Aren't there any advertisers willing to step up and fund specials for CNN, FOX or MSNBC to report on the magnitude of this suffering? Who is willing to pay the price for their sake? It's time all of us were willing to cover the price only they have been asked to pay.

The war against PTSD in the US army
FOCUS

The war against PTSD in the US army



After ignoring and dodging the issue for years, the US army is being forced to face the alarming numbers of soldiers who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The suicide rate among troops on active duty is at an all time high and rising, while veterans are bringing the war home to their families and communities in the form of addiction, abuse and even murder. They are committing suicide at the rate of 18 a day.

Al Jazeera's The War Within programme examined the toll repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are taking on soldiers.

To understand the symptoms and causes of PTSD from a medical perspective, Al Jazeera spoke to Barbara Van Dahlen, a clinical psychologist and the president and founder of Give An Hour (GAH), a nonprofit organisation that provides free mental health services to US military personnel and their families who have been affected by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
read more here
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/02/20102685951740629.html

Give An Hour giving more to wounded warriors fighting PTSD

Time to take advantage of all the help they can get
By Jane Clifford (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. April 5, 2009
Fighting a war, like the one in Iraq, can't be easy. But equally difficult is coming home from that war, Charlie Hoar says.
Charlie is a licensed clinical psychologist in North County who is involved with a program called Give An Hour. Started in 2005, the project's goal is to recruit therapists to donate an hour of counseling time to men and women returning from war zones and their extended families.
That's been no problem, Hoar says. There are thousands signed up around the country, including the San Diego area, ready to help. What is a problem is getting people to take advantage of the free sessions.
“In the past, there's been some concern on the part of active-duty service members that (seeking help) may affect their career,” Hoar says. “They worry they may be seen as not able to handle the challenges, that they're not strong enough, can't hack it.”
That leads, she says, to avoiding the very real consequences these veterans face.
“Anybody who's been in combat is affected,” she says. “They may not be physically injured, something that's observable but often, psychologically, they've been impacted.”
Internalizing what they've been through is common, Hoar says, and not a good idea. It will come out – maybe it'll be nightmares or drinking excessively or gambling. For others, it might be withdrawing from a spouse or children, unexplained anger, overreaction to things.
“These are normal reactions to having been in horrendous situations. You don't usually see people losing limbs every day.”
As she spoke, I remembered my first husband, a veteran of three tours in Vietnam. On the outside, he seemed fine. But on the inside, there was obvious turmoil. He didn't talk much about what he'd seen, what he'd done, but what we all knew of that conflict told me he must have had a lot of pain, physical and emotional. No counseling for him, though. That would show exactly what Hoar said many think: weakness.
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Time to take advantage of all the help they can get

Something We Can All Agree On: Voluntary Assistance to Veterans

Something We Can All Agree On: Voluntary Assistance to Veterans
Huffington Post - New York,NY,USA

Robert S. McElvaine
Posted March 19, 2009 | 08:49 PM (EST)

Today we mark the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. Recent reports indicate that the situation there has improved considerably. The focus is shifting back to Afghanistan. President Obama has made good on his campaign promise to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. The question remains, though, with a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and uncertainty in the surrounding region, whether our troops will actually come home or whether they will be redeployed to Afghanistan or elsewhere.

We have lost nearly 5000 American men and women who, we can all agree, regardless of our personal feelings about the wars, bravely served our country. More than 33,000 Americans have been severely wounded. Beyond these horrifying numbers are the psychological toll these wars are taking on our service members and their families with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries, as well as the everyday, but very serious, stress and strain that deployments and separations can have on marriages and families. Sadly, these problems are not going to disappear when the wars ever end. Studies show that post-traumatic stress never truly goes away but it can be managed. These studies also show that in order for the normal reactions-stress that one would expect anyone to have after experiencing combat and other terrifying situations-not to become a full-blown disorder, professional mental health services should be accessed quickly.

The DoD and VA are making an effort to address the issue, but they also seem to be moving at the normal speed of government, rather than the sort of accelerated government speed the financial crisis has produced. We must look to the private sector to step in to ensure that help is available when and where it is needed.

This anniversary of the war is an appropriate time to take note of the work of Give an Hour (www.giveanhour.org), a nonprofit organization that has created a national network of mental health professionals who are providing free counseling to military personnel, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families. The Give an Hour network has nearly 4,000 professional volunteers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
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Give an Hour: More than We Envisioned

Give an Hour: More than We Envisioned
[1/6/2009]

Source: Barbara V. Romberg


The beginning of every year offers an opportunity for reflection and anticipation. As we head into 2009 and continue our efforts to provide critical mental health care to the men, women, and families who serve our country, it is important to stop for a moment to review our mission and contemplate our future.

Give an Hour began nearly four years ago as a response to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our initial concept was simple: ask the licensed mental health professionals in our country to offer an hour per week of service to those men, women, and families affected by the current conflicts. Our mental health community has responded with tremendous generosity. We now have nearly 3,200 providers in the Give an Hour network—with more joining daily—and we have the support of the major mental health associations in the United States, including the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.

In addition, with the support of West Virginia’s Governor Joe Manchin and in partnership with West Virginia’s Counsel of Churches and its National Guard, we launched a statewide initiative in the Mountain State in October. We expect to launch similar initiatives this year in several other states including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Arkansas. Our providers have given nearly 7,500 hours in direct and indirect service since we began offering care in July of 2007. Thousands of additional hours have been donated by numerous volunteers who work behind the scenes to ensure that our organization runs smoothly and effectively.

Give an Hour has received grants from the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, the Bob Woodruff Family Foundation, and the Standard Foundation. Humana Military donated a beautiful new Web site to Give an Hour in the spring of 2008, and we have received generous monetary gifts from Veterans Advantage, Value Options, Capital One, and many individual donors.

Moreover, we have developed excellent relationships with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, numerous Veterans Service Organizations, and many National Guard and Reserve Units across the country. Give an Hour is welcomed by these organizations as a critical partner in the effort to provide continuity of care to returning warriors and their families. In November I was asked by the Presidential Transition Team for Veterans Affairs to submit a position paper on my views regarding the needs of the military community.

Clearly, we are well on the way to achieving our mission. But something amazing and unexpected has happened as a result of our efforts. In the course of providing direct mental health services to the military community, we have become an agent of social change. Give an Hour is helping to shift our nation’s view of mental health and psychological care—while offering a new model for volunteerism.
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Give An Hour making news again

DoD: America Supports You: Group Offers Free Mental Health Counseling

By AmericasNewsToday.Org staff



Mental Health practitioners nationwide are donating their time and services to provide free, confidential counseling to military people and their families.

"Combat affects everyone in one way or another," explained Dr. Barbara Romberg in an "ASY Live" interview on BlogTalkRadio. "Most people react when exposed to a situation where there are extreme or horrific events; it is a human reaction to abnormal situations."

ASY Live is part of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, which connects citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad.

Romberg, founder and president of "Give an Hour," said she started her nonprofit organization to educate servicemembers and their families about the seriousness of post-traumatic stress disorder and the importance of taking steps to combat it.

"When we set up the organization a few years ago, the concept was very simple, she said. "We asked mental health professionals across the country to give an hour of their time."

When one of the program’s providers was asked why she joined, Romberg said, her answer was equally simple. "How could I not? It’s so little that they are asking of me to give," the practitioner said.

Romberg said a broad spectrum of mental health practitioners participated in Give an Hour. "We have mental health professionals of all kinds -- psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, licensed marriage and family counselors, substance abuse counselors and pastors," she explained. "One size doesn’t fit all; people need different things."

Raising awareness about PTSD is as important to the group as providing help to people who need it, she said.

"We are really launching a public education campaign to make sure our entire country understands post-traumatic stress -- what it is and why it’s so important to address," she said. "Post-traumatic stress is a condition that will affect most people."

Romberg said there are important signs that a family member can identify that may be an indication that professional help may be a necessary part of the recovery process.
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Financial reality of ignoring PTSD

American Psychiatric Foundation, Lilly Foundation And Give An Hour Join Forces To Provide Mental Health Care To Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans

Heeding the call of a growing public health crisis -- the unmet mental health needs of returning soldiers and their families -- Give an Hour (GAH) and the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF) announced a major expansion of a nationwide effort to help U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

GAH and APF, the philanthropic and educational arm of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), will be using a $1 million grant from the Lilly Foundation to recruit and educate volunteer mental health professionals, who will become part of a network aiming to bridge the gap in mental health services for soldiers returning from service, as well as their families. Among troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines, and half of the National Guard members report psychological problems, but mental health services are in short supply.

Details of today's announcement were made public by the three organizations at the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) building on Capitol Hill -- one week prior to the nation's Memorial Day holiday. The ROA represents the interest of the soldiers of the Army National Guard, who suffer high rates of post-combat psychological problems, exacerbated by repeat deployments, detailed front-line combat positions and little access to the services of military treatment facilities.

"This all-volunteer effort provides badly needed support to help our veterans, many of whom come home with mental health needs," said U.S. Representative Steve Buyer (R-Indiana), Ranking Member, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "I applaud the hard work of Give an Hour, the American Psychiatric Foundation, and the Lilly Foundation, which are stepping up to help those who have selflessly served."

Efforts will be made to create a large, national, volunteer network over the next three years to address postwar mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), drug abuse, anxiety and depression.

"This grant will allow us to get out the message that help is available. We want to normalize what our military personnel and their families are experiencing and support the sacrifices that they are making by providing critical mental health support at no cost," said Barbara V. Romberg, Ph.D., founder and president of GAH. "We will be educating the military community and broader public about these mental health needs in hope of helping veterans keep their lives and families intact."
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/108689.php

Aside from the emotional costs when families fall apart, this is a glimpse of what it costs the nation.

April 15, 2008
Study: Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion
Story Highlights
New study says divorce, unwed childbearing cost taxpayers

Says $112 billion spent on welfare, healthcare, criminal justice

Study sponsors want more funding for strengthening marriages
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/04/15/fragmented.families.ap/index.html

We cannot save all marriages and some marriages should not be saved. Yet this is not about the rest of the nation. This is about families trying to cope with Post Traumatic Stress. There are too many who have no idea what PTSD is, what the cause of the changes in their family life comes from or why someone they loved suddenly turned into a stranger.

It is nearly impossible to hold a family together when we know what PTSD is and why everything is falling apart, yet when we do not know the cause of it, the veteran is blamed for all of it. Families fall apart, but it does not stop there.

The veteran, still suffering from PTSD, from the wound they brought home with them, is suffering alone because his/her family could not deal with the way they acted any longer. Jobs are very hard to keep when there is no support and they lost their home life. The financial burden on them to support themselves along with child support and financial obligations to their family, adds stress to a veteran trying to survive.

Yet when they know what PTSD is, what is causing the upheaval in the home, the changes in the person they love, they are armed to fight it all. They are given the tools to cope until they get the treatment they desperately need. When anyone says that the price is too high, they should have considered this when the war was planned out. When they say it costs too much money to take care of all the veterans with PTSD, they better reconsider anything they knew about accounting because the money they spend now, early on, is a lot less than they will have to pay for years to come by doing nothing.

Give An Hour volunteers are giving up a lot of money for the time they donate. They understand that failing to act will cost lives, marriages and futures for far too many.

What are you doing?

Give An Hour Getting Million Dollar Grant From Lilly Foundation

American Psychiatric Foundation, Lilly Foundation and Give an Hour Join Forces to Provide Mental Health Care to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

WASHINGTON, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Heeding the call of a growing public health crisis -- the unmet mental health needs of returning soldiers and their families -- Give an Hour (GAH) and the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF) announced today a major expansion of a nationwide effort to help U.S. veterans returning fromIraq andAfghanistan.

GAH and APF, the philanthropic and educational arm of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), will be using a $1 million grant from the Lilly Foundation to recruit and educate volunteer mental health professionals, who will become part of a network aiming to bridge the gap in mental health services for soldiers returning from service, as well as their families. Among troops returning fromIraq andAfghanistan, approximately 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines, and half of the National Guard members report psychological problems, but mental health services are in short supply.

Details of today's announcement were made public by the three organizations at the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) building on Capitol Hill -- one week prior to the nation's Memorial Day holiday. The ROA represents the interest of the soldiers of the Army National Guard, who suffer high rates of post-combat psychological problems, exacerbated by repeat deployments, detailed front-line combat positions and little access to the services of military treatment facilities.

"This all-volunteer effort provides badly needed support to help our veterans, many of whom come home with mental health needs," said U.S. Representative Steve Buyer (R-Indiana), Ranking Member, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "I applaud the hard work of Give an Hour, the American Psychiatric Foundation, and the Lilly Foundation, which are stepping up to help those who have selflessly served."

Efforts will be made to create a large, national, volunteer network over the next three years to address postwar mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), drug abuse, anxiety and depression.

"This grant will allow us to get out the message that help is available. We want to normalize what our military personnel and their families are experiencing and support the sacrifices that they are making by providing critical mental health support at no cost," said Barbara V. Romberg, Ph.D., founder and president of GAH. "We will be educating the military community and broader public about these mental health needs in hope of helping veterans keep their lives and families intact."

GAH is recruiting mental health professionals to volunteer one hour each week for a minimum of one year to provide direct services in person, by phone or in consultation with schools and community organizations that serve the military community. Services are wide-ranging and include marital and family therapy, substance abuse counseling and treatment for PTSD. APF brings strong ties to the psychiatric community and is actively encouraging psychiatrists to join the network.

"This grant will help us reach our goal of recruiting 10 percent of the 400,000 mental health professionals inthe United States by 2015 to assist in this effort," said Dr. Richard K. Harding, M.D., president of the APF. "It is an ambitious goal, but we are confident it can be achieved."

The Department of Defense (DoD) is making an unprecedented attempt to encourage personnel to seek mental health treatment, but a significant increase in demand, in some areas, has forced the rationing of services, created long waiting lists and limited individual counseling sessions. In addition, some members of military families such as parents, siblings and unmarried partners do not qualify for care through the Veterans Administration or DoD but are affected nonetheless by the mental health of the veteran.

"We're privileged to be able to give something back to our troops, but we know there's still much more to be done," said Steven Paul, M.D., executive vice president for science and technology and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. "Lilly is fully committed to assuring that the best possible medicinal treatments are available, but unfortunately, we also know that having access to the best care -- in this case mental health services -- is essential."

About Give an Hour

Give an Hour is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), founded in September 2005 by Dr. Barbara V. Romberg, a psychologist in theWashington, D.C., area. The organization's mission is to develop national networks of volunteers capable of responding to both acute and chronic conditions that arise within our society. Currently, GAH is dedicated to meeting the mental health needs of the troops and families affected by the ongoing conflicts inIraq andAfghanistan. Give an Hour now has approximately 1,200 providers across the nation and continues to recruit volunteer mental health professionals to its network. For more information or to volunteer to become part of the effort, please visit www.giveanhour.org.

About The American Psychiatric Foundation

The American Psychiatric Foundation is the charitable and educational subsidiary of the American Psychiatric Association. The mission of the foundation is to advance understanding that mental illnesses are real and can be effectively treated. For more information, please visit the foundation's web site at www.psychfoundation.org.

About Lilly

Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of first-in-class and best-in-class pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers -- through medicines and information -- for some of the world's most urgent medical needs. Additional information about Lilly is available at www.lilly.com.

http://newsblaze.com/story/2008051907331000006.pnw/newsblaze/POLITICS/Politics.html