Bringing services to combat veterans
LARRY HENDRICKS News Team Leader
Posted: Sunday, April 3, 2011
The brunt of the counseling services Erik Adams, a veteran and counselor, offers is for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Combat veterans come to him to speak of their experiences in combat zones and their difficulties in readjusting to civilian life.
In Arizona, combat veterans living in rural communities typically had to drive long distances to receive services from a Veterans Center set up by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
But no longer.
"We have the ability to bring a mobile Vet Center into areas where there is no fixed site," said Bobby Fields, readjustment counseling tech for the Veterans Center in Prescott.
In late 2009, the Prescott Veterans Center received a $286,000 mobile Vet Center to take mental health services to vets throughout northern Arizona. And since 2010, the mobile unit comes to Flagstaff twice a month.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Vet Centers provide readjustment counseling to help combat veterans and their families successfully transition back to civilian life.
read more here
Bringing services to combat veterans
Showing posts with label Vet Centers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vet Centers. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2011
Friday, January 9, 2009
VA "Announces $22 Million for Rural Veterans" without knowing what rural is
Take a look at where the funding is going. How are they "rural" areas?
This is Beford VA
Bedford is just a few miles away from Route 128, one of the major highways in the Boston area. The other outpatient clinics are in majory cities.
The rest on the list are not rural either. The veterans in rural areas, real rural areas of the country are the ones that really need the help and need help yesterday.
This is Beford VA
About VAMC Bedford
The Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital (Bedford VA) consists of a 500+ bed facility located in Bedford, MA. It includes a Veterans Community Care Center, Vietnam Veterans Outreach Center in Lowell, MA, and Veterans Day Activity Center in Winchendon, MA. Bedford VA also has four Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) located in Lynn, Haverhill, Gloucester and Fitchburg, MA.
Bedford is just a few miles away from Route 128, one of the major highways in the Boston area. The other outpatient clinics are in majory cities.
The rest on the list are not rural either. The veterans in rural areas, real rural areas of the country are the ones that really need the help and need help yesterday.
Recent VA News Releases
To view and download VA news releases, please visit the following
Internet address: http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel
VA Announces $22 Million for Rural Veterans
Peake: Down Payment on Expansion of Services
WASHINGTON (January 9, 2009) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
has provided $21.7 million to its regional health care systems to
improve services specifically designed for veterans in rural areas.
"This special allocation is the latest down payment on VA's
commitment to meet the needs of veterans living in rural areas," said
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. "VA will take to our
rural veterans the health care services they have earned."
Within the last year, VA has launched a major rural health
initiative. The Department has already created a 13-member committee to
advise the VA secretary on issues affecting rural veterans, opened three
rural health resource centers to better understand rural health issues,
rolled out four new mobile health clinics to serve 24 predominately
rural counties, announced the opening of 10 new rural outreach clinics
in 2009 and launched a fleet of 50 new mobile counseling centers.
The extra funding is part of a two-year VA program to improve the
access and quality of health care for veterans in geographically
isolated areas. The program focuses on several areas, including access
to health care, providing world-class care, the use of the latest
technology, recruiting and retaining a highly educated workforce and
collaborating with other organizations.
More specifically, the new funds will be used to increase the
number of mobile clinics, establish new outpatient clinics, expand
fee-based care, explore collaborations with federal and community
partners, accelerate the use of telemedicine deployment, and fund
innovative pilot programs.
The new funds will be distributed according to the proportion of
veterans living in rural areas within each VA regional health care
system, called VISNs, for "Veterans Integrated Service Networks."
VISNs with less than 3 percent of their patients in rural areas
will receive $250,000. Those with population of rural veterans between
3 percent and 6 percent will receive $1 million each. And VISNs with
more than 6 percent of their veterans population in rural areas will
receive $1.5 million.
Special VA Funding for Rural Health
(By VISN number and VISN Headquarters)
#1. Bedford, Mass., $1 million
#2. Rochester, N.Y., $1 million
#3. New York, N.Y., $250,000
#4. Wilmington, Del., $1 million
#5. Baltimore, Md., $250,000
#6. Durham, N.C., $1.5 million
#7. Atlanta, Ga., $1.5 million
#8. Bay Pines, Fla., $1 million
#9. Nashville, Tenn., $1.5 million
#10. Cincinnati, Ohio, $1 million
#11. Ann Arbor, Mich., $1 million
#12. Chicago, Ill., $1 million
#15. Kansas City, Mo., $1.5 million
#16. Jackson, Miss., $1.5 million
#17. Arlington, Texas, $1 million
#18. Mesa, Ariz., $1 million
#19. Denver, Colo., $1 million
#20. Vancouver, Wash., $1 million
#21. Palo Alto, Calif., $1 million
#22. Long Beach, Calif., $250,000
#23. Lincoln, Neb., $1.5 million
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Healing the Wounds of War Downtown
Healing the Wounds of War Downtown
Tribeca Trib - New York,NY,USA
By Carl Glassman
POSTED JANURARY 2, 2009
One flight up, just above the hubbub of lower Broadway, men and women who have gone to war come to seek peace.
There, behind closed doors and amid wall maps and memorabilia of American conflicts, counselors help to dress the emotional wounds of vets, some untreated for more than 40 years.
The Vet Center, at 32 Broadway, is where combat veterans—many of whom live or work Downtown—are provided with free counseling. One of two centers in Manhattan and more than 200 around the country, it is also a treatment center for victims of sexual trauma in the military.
In the soothing dimness of her office, Michelle Mullany, 34, a social worker and former Marine, sees many of those veterans.
“A lot of them come with a sense of guilt, remorse, questioning of authority, questioning of their reason for doing what they did in combat,” said Mullany, who heads a team of four counselors, all vets. “They are looking for a place where they can talk about that openly and not feel judged.”
Last month, the Trib talked to Iraq and Vietnam combat veterans about the Vet Center, and what it means to those whose lives are scarred by war.
“Once you go through an experience like [combat] you are permanently changed,” said Iraq war vet Eduard H.R. Gluck, a Worth Street resident and photojournalist who receives counseling at the Vet Center. “But you don’t have to allow it to change you just in a negative way. You have to work towards trying to find balance and peace.”
The Vet Center program began in 1979, a recognition by the government that Vietnam veterans still faced adjustment problems years after the war had ended.
Even today, Vietnam veterans are two-thirds of the clients coming to the Manhattan center. But an increasing number of Iraq war vets are finding their way there as well.
Luis Montalvan, discharged in September 2007 after two tours in Iraq, describes himself as having “the whole gamut” of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms: difficulty leaving his apartment, hypervigilence in public places, anxiety, panic attacks and flashbacks. This, in addition to physical wounds that he is reluctant to discuss—including a stabbing, traumatic brain injury and three fractured vertebrae.
The Veterans Administration Health Center in Brooklyn was his first stop after returning home. Unhappy with the counseling there, after eight months he switched to the Vet Center.
“Like night and day,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s an us-against-them mentality, a sterile approach to dealing with mental health.”
“If I didn’t get therapy,” added Montalvan, 35, now a graduate journalism student at Columbia University, “I would be sadly locked away in my apartment, not able to function.”
Many combat vets find it difficult to share their experiences. Mullany said she reassures her clients that she can “hold” their painful emotions, that she has the training and her own emotional outlets to handle it.
“I’m going down to that dark place with you, to hold your hand, to allow you to sit with me and feel safe with me,” she said she tells them.
“Safety is the number one thing in treating trauma,” Mullany said. “Feeling safe in the world.”
John Dugan, 27, is a former Marine infantryman whose fresh face and gentle presence bely the awful memories and deep sorrows he carries with him from combat in Iraq.
Now a waiter at two Downtown restaurants, Dugan was one of three two-man teams of Marines to first enter Fallujah in what was to be one of the bloodiest battles of the war. These days he fights the symptoms of PTSD that are common among vets seeking help at the center, including sleeplessness, anger, depression and guilt.
“Better people who lived their lives a lot different than I did died and they really shouldn’t have,” said Dugan.
Near the end of his tour, Dugan was boarding a helicopter bound for the next mission, to guard polling stations during the nation’s elections.
“I followed my lieutenant getting on to the helicopter. He turns around and tells me, ‘This is too full. Go to the next one.’ They’re in the air 15 minutes, then the helicopter crashes and they’re all dead.”
“Thirty-one guys, like that,” he adds, snapping his fingers. “The guys would have been at my f---ing wedding.”
click above link for more
Tribeca Trib - New York,NY,USA
By Carl Glassman
POSTED JANURARY 2, 2009
One flight up, just above the hubbub of lower Broadway, men and women who have gone to war come to seek peace.
There, behind closed doors and amid wall maps and memorabilia of American conflicts, counselors help to dress the emotional wounds of vets, some untreated for more than 40 years.
The Vet Center, at 32 Broadway, is where combat veterans—many of whom live or work Downtown—are provided with free counseling. One of two centers in Manhattan and more than 200 around the country, it is also a treatment center for victims of sexual trauma in the military.
In the soothing dimness of her office, Michelle Mullany, 34, a social worker and former Marine, sees many of those veterans.
“A lot of them come with a sense of guilt, remorse, questioning of authority, questioning of their reason for doing what they did in combat,” said Mullany, who heads a team of four counselors, all vets. “They are looking for a place where they can talk about that openly and not feel judged.”
Last month, the Trib talked to Iraq and Vietnam combat veterans about the Vet Center, and what it means to those whose lives are scarred by war.
“Once you go through an experience like [combat] you are permanently changed,” said Iraq war vet Eduard H.R. Gluck, a Worth Street resident and photojournalist who receives counseling at the Vet Center. “But you don’t have to allow it to change you just in a negative way. You have to work towards trying to find balance and peace.”
The Vet Center program began in 1979, a recognition by the government that Vietnam veterans still faced adjustment problems years after the war had ended.
Even today, Vietnam veterans are two-thirds of the clients coming to the Manhattan center. But an increasing number of Iraq war vets are finding their way there as well.
Luis Montalvan, discharged in September 2007 after two tours in Iraq, describes himself as having “the whole gamut” of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms: difficulty leaving his apartment, hypervigilence in public places, anxiety, panic attacks and flashbacks. This, in addition to physical wounds that he is reluctant to discuss—including a stabbing, traumatic brain injury and three fractured vertebrae.
The Veterans Administration Health Center in Brooklyn was his first stop after returning home. Unhappy with the counseling there, after eight months he switched to the Vet Center.
“Like night and day,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s an us-against-them mentality, a sterile approach to dealing with mental health.”
“If I didn’t get therapy,” added Montalvan, 35, now a graduate journalism student at Columbia University, “I would be sadly locked away in my apartment, not able to function.”
Many combat vets find it difficult to share their experiences. Mullany said she reassures her clients that she can “hold” their painful emotions, that she has the training and her own emotional outlets to handle it.
“I’m going down to that dark place with you, to hold your hand, to allow you to sit with me and feel safe with me,” she said she tells them.
“Safety is the number one thing in treating trauma,” Mullany said. “Feeling safe in the world.”
John Dugan, 27, is a former Marine infantryman whose fresh face and gentle presence bely the awful memories and deep sorrows he carries with him from combat in Iraq.
Now a waiter at two Downtown restaurants, Dugan was one of three two-man teams of Marines to first enter Fallujah in what was to be one of the bloodiest battles of the war. These days he fights the symptoms of PTSD that are common among vets seeking help at the center, including sleeplessness, anger, depression and guilt.
“Better people who lived their lives a lot different than I did died and they really shouldn’t have,” said Dugan.
Near the end of his tour, Dugan was boarding a helicopter bound for the next mission, to guard polling stations during the nation’s elections.
“I followed my lieutenant getting on to the helicopter. He turns around and tells me, ‘This is too full. Go to the next one.’ They’re in the air 15 minutes, then the helicopter crashes and they’re all dead.”
“Thirty-one guys, like that,” he adds, snapping his fingers. “The guys would have been at my f---ing wedding.”
Some 40 years ago Doug Fristoe, now 62 and a resident of Independence Plaza in Tribeca, needed that same hope. His life would have taken a different course, he said, if a Vet Center had been around after he fought in the jungles of Vietnam, where friends died and he was seriously wounded.
There were failed marriages, depression, difficulty focusing on the job and a bankruptcy. It was only during a visit to a VA hospital, after losing his health insurance, that he was finally tested for PTSD, and scored high.
At the Vet Center, Fistoe receives individual counseling and attends group sessions with fellow Vietnam vets.
“It’s put me back in focus and helped me a lot,” said Fristoe. “Tell these kids from Iraq and Afghanistan to take advantage of it, even if they think they don’t need help.”
click above link for more
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Bill would let troops get help at Vet Centers
Bill would let troops get help at Vet Centers
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 13, 2008 18:07:59 EDT
Opening the nation’s 232 Vet Centers to active-duty and reserve component members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan so they could receive readjustment counseling might duplicate existing military programs, but it would still help combat veterans, according to a new analysis by a nonpartisan arm of Congress.
The Congressional Budget Office, tasked with putting a price tag on pending legislation, looked at counseling services as it estimated the cost of S 2969, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2008, passed by the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_activeduty_vetcenters_081308w/
This is one of the smartest things they could do, so why aren't they all lining up to support this? Have you ever tried to get a combat veteran into the VA? Most of the time they say they don't want anything to do with the government and they view Vets Centers as going to see one of their own. Instead of turning to the government they view as "the one who sent them into combat in the first place" they view the centers as going to see their brothers. Big difference.
The Veteran's Center in Boston was the reason my husband was finally willing to go to the VA. He had been diagnosed three years earlier with PTSD from Vietnam despite the fact I already knew it. He just wouldn't listen. I had to build a relationship with a vet at the center before I could get my husband to go. Up until then, any mention of the VA was a guaranteed anger riser. Had it not been for the Vet's Center, I don't know if I would have ever managed to get him to go for help at the VA.
The centers are not just friendly territory, they are a bridge to help them face dealing with the bureaucracy of the VA itself. They provide support for the veteran and their families. It's money well spent. The other plus side is that we don't have VA hospitals where they are needed. Take a veteran in a rural part of the country who needs some face to face compassion and understanding of another veteran but not being able to get to it and you have a life on the line. It happens all the time.
It's hard enough to get these veterans to seek help in the first place. Why not make it as easy as possible? The suicide prevention call numbers are great but they are not the long term answer. Veteran's Centers are a bridge to getting there.
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
Friday, July 4, 2008
Modesto Vet Center finally was christened
Center is the state's first since 1995; facility to serve SJ Valley, Sierra foothills
By KEN CARLSON
kcarlson@modbee.com
For 10 years, organizations lobbied the federal government to put a Vet Center in Modesto.
On Thursday, the Modesto Vet Center finally was christened in an office building at 1219 N. Carpenter Road.
"It is a long time coming," said Roy Santiago, commander of the American Legion's 12th District, which oversees posts in Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced counties, and whose members wrote letters supporting the campaign.
"We have close to 30,000 veterans living in our area. The need is here for this center," Santiago said.
The Modesto center, which started counseling combat veterans in borrowed office space in December, already has assisted about 400 people, the Legion official said. The center's eight-member staff is set up to serve combat veterans and their families from the Northern San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra foothills.
Congress established the community-based centers in 1979 for Vietnam veterans who were struggling with many issues after returning home from combat.
In the 1990s, the government extended the services to combat veterans of World War II, the Korean War and Persian Gulf War. The Department of Veterans Affairs selected Modesto for one of the 23 new centers as soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's the first Vet Center to open in California since the Chico center opened in 1995.
go here for more
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/349796.html
By KEN CARLSON
kcarlson@modbee.com
For 10 years, organizations lobbied the federal government to put a Vet Center in Modesto.
On Thursday, the Modesto Vet Center finally was christened in an office building at 1219 N. Carpenter Road.
"It is a long time coming," said Roy Santiago, commander of the American Legion's 12th District, which oversees posts in Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced counties, and whose members wrote letters supporting the campaign.
"We have close to 30,000 veterans living in our area. The need is here for this center," Santiago said.
The Modesto center, which started counseling combat veterans in borrowed office space in December, already has assisted about 400 people, the Legion official said. The center's eight-member staff is set up to serve combat veterans and their families from the Northern San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra foothills.
Congress established the community-based centers in 1979 for Vietnam veterans who were struggling with many issues after returning home from combat.
In the 1990s, the government extended the services to combat veterans of World War II, the Korean War and Persian Gulf War. The Department of Veterans Affairs selected Modesto for one of the 23 new centers as soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's the first Vet Center to open in California since the Chico center opened in 1995.
go here for more
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/349796.html
Friday, May 2, 2008
PTSD truth causes fast changes
VA adds $2 million for PTSD center
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 2, 2008 14:22:34 EDT
After a series of congressional hearings showed that gaps remain in mental health care for veterans, the Veterans Affairs Department announced Friday it is allocating an additional $2 million to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
A recent Rand Corp. study found that more than 300,000 combat veterans suffer from PTSD or major depression — a number that mirrors the Defense Department’s own studies.
But Rand found that only 50 percent of them receive care — and of those, only half received “minimally adequate” care — or care proven to be effective in treating PTSD.
The Defense Department, as well as Rand, have also found that significant issues remain in combating stigma surrounding PTSD. Many troops still think that their leaders will find them weak if they seek care, that a mental health issue could ruin their careers, that they’ll be prescribed anti-depressants with harmful side effects or that they’ll be denied security clearances.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_ptsd_funding_050208w/
Bill would open Vet Centers to active troops
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 2, 2008 13:17:01 EDT
Active and reserve service members would be eligible for mental health counseling from one of the 207 veterans’ centers operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs under bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday.
The bill also includes incentives for veterans to become mental health specialists so they could serve as counselors.
The bill would extend military survivor benefits in cases of suicide among service members with a history of service-connected mental health problems, an unprecedented policy change that would extend active-duty survivor benefits beyond the end of service for those who are not receiving retired pay.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., joined by six other senators including Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, said he is looking for a quick way to increase access to qualified behavioral health specialists who can provide both immediate treatment and, if needed, long-term care.
Vet Centers, which provide readjustment and mental health counseling for people no longer in the military, are not typically available for use by people on active duty, nor to their families. National Guard and reserve members may use Vet Centers after being demobilized but sometimes have problems with eligibility because they do not have the same discharge papers provided to people separated from active duty.
The bill introduced Thursday, S 2963, “will give our troops the same access to Vet Centers our veterans receive,” Bond said in a statement.
This “not only opens the door to additional resources but also lightens the load on our currently over-tasked specialists,” Bond said. “There are grossly insufficient numbers of military behavioral health specialists to provide the care our troops need.”
go here for morehttp://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_vetcenters_050208w/
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