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More Needs to Be Done to Meet the Mental Health Challenges Facing Veterans by TAMMY BARLET My mental health was not high on my to-do list as I shortly after their transition. Over the past 10 years, transitioned from the Coast Guard to civilian life. Extending the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) increased my eight-year service contract by eight months to complete a upstream mental health programs to address suicide medical board only deepened my depression. This extension prevention. The VA expanded mental health services to kept me in Houston far from my family support system while meet veterans’ mental health needs even if they are not adjusting to life with my new physical injuries. I was alone, enrolled in VHA. The VA Mission Act of 2018 allows I was hurt, and I worried about what my new future would providers to deliver care via telemedical systems to look like. For many transitioning veterans across state lines. veterans, this remains the case. Although access has increased, More than 500 active duty staff shortages still remain. service members transition to Psychiatry is the most common veteran status every day. Moving a severe clinical shortage in family, finding housing, searching 60 percent of VA facilities, for employment, starting school, according to a 2020 Office of all while going through the Inspector General report. complicated process of filing a For 42 years, Vet Department of Veterans Affairs Centers have been VA’s (VA) disability compensation unheralded program. Vet claim, usually takes precedence Centers offer various services, over treatment for depression, including individual and anxiety, PTSD, or MST. This family counseling, benefits delicate time of leaving the explanation, substance abuse routine, structure, and purpose the assessment and referral, and military provides while looking many others. There are over to new beginnings and unknowns 300 centers, 83 mobile units, can be a whirlwind of emotions and several outstations and Tammy Barlet for these new veterans as they community access points to work to successfully navigate serve eligible veterans and their their next life chapter. families, and yet, not many Transitioning from Recently, the VA created veterans know they exist nor do programs like Solid Start to active duty service member they know who may be eligible address a gap in assisting veterans for service. Vet Centers operate to veteran bring many as they transition back to civilian without a proper staffing challenges and mental life. This program reaches out to model to provide service for newly separated service members an increasingly eligible group health stressors. three times during their first year of veterans and their families. of separation to connect them with Evaluating and understanding VA resources. Within the first year of this program, the VA who uses Vet Centers and why will help to coordinate contacted 60 percent of active duty members who separated adequate staffing, resources, and funding. in 2020. Sixty percent is a good start, but, according to the Transitioning from active duty service member VA’s 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual to veteran brings many challenges and mental health Report, veterans between the ages of 18-34 continue to have stressors. Therefore, these individuals are at a higher risk the highest unadjusted suicide rate. Therefore, more must be of suicide the first 12 months after separation and may done. require increased access to services. Expanding mental Removing the barrier to access allows veterans the health access to both VHA and Vet Centers further opportunity to receive mental health services from the VA reduces the barriers to care. While these programs 18
RIPON FORUM Veterans Day 2021
