The Department of Veterans Affairs is releasing for public comment a draft of its strategic report to address key issues facing women Veterans. The plan outlines steps for improvements to care and services for women Veterans that are sustainable, accountable and a part of the department’s culture and operations.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki formed a task force to develop an action plan to address women Veterans’ issues. Since then, the group has conducted a broad survey of department experts to identify those issues and organize them by priority. The draft report is an interim step prior to VA finalizing its overall plan.
The report comes at an important juncture in VA’s history that demands a review of the quality, quantity, and types of services and programs it provides to women Veterans. The number of women Veterans using VA has increased 83 percent in the past decade, from about 160,000 to over 292,000 between fiscal years 2000 and 2009, compared with a 50 percent increase in men.
The public notice and instructions for how to submit comments will be posted at www.regulations.gov. The draft written report will be open for comment for 30 days, and responders will have a number of options to provide both electronic and written feedback. Readers will also be able to participate in a public discussion board on the Internet at: http://vawomenvetstratplan.uservoice.com/forums/159415-general.
Army psychologist CPT Katie Kopp has an unusual tool to help soldiers deployed to eastern Afghanistan deal with combat stress. His name is Hank and he’s a spirited 3-year-old Boston terrier.
Check out the great interviews with CPT Kopp and Sgt. Nahum Campos on how therapy dogs help deployed servicemembers cope with stress, and what it’s like working with a canine on the battlefield:
As increasing numbers of servicemembers come home from duty suffering from the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the Army is looking at new techniques and tools to help track and diagnose brain injuries while servicemembers are still deployed.
“By evaluating a person’s tracking performance, we can make inferences about their attention system function,” Coppersmith said. “Attention is one of the cognitive processes that [are] often affected by brain injury or illness. It can be a fairly sensitive, but not necessarily specific, indicator of brain injury.”
Looks like this could be a great new way to help evaluate readiness in the field. What do you think? Could this be a breakthrough, or just a nice try?
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), the agency that pays the nation’s more than 2 million military retirees, will host its first Facebook town hall for military retirees on May 8 from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern.
During this online town hall meeting, military retirees will have direct access to DFAS Retired and Annuitant Pay experts, who’ll answer their retirement questions live on Facebook. “We’ve been focused on finding ways to enhance customer service and improve communication with military retirees over the past two years,” said Colonel Ralph Lunt, deputy director of DFAS Retired and Annuitant Pay. “The town hall is a new way for us to listen to the issues facing our customers and provide answers to a large
number of retirees quickly and easily.”
Anyone can view the DFAS Facebook page, but users must have a Facebook account to submit topic ideas or participate in the town hall meeting. DFAS will not answer individual customers’ account-specific questions during the town hall, because such questions require the collection of personal information and additional time for processing.
For more information about the event, visit www.dfas.mil/facebooktownhall. This page will serve as a home base for town hall information and will be updated with details such as discussion topics, guidelines for participants, and bios and photos of the retired pay experts, as they become available.
While DFAS will only have retired pay experts on hand for its first town hall meeting, the agency plans to host future social media events where they will answer questions on subjects like military pay and travel.
DFAS experts plan to answer as many questions as they can during the two-hour town hall meeting. Any retirement questions they can’t answer during the event will be answered within the normal two to three business days. Non-retirement related questions submitted during the live town hall session will be held until it is over and answered within the normal time frame.
Struggling with post-traumatic stress, veteran David Sharpe says he found a dog at a shelter that saved his life. Now, with a group called P2V, he pairs other vets with rescued pets.
A message from the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs:
Today, in response to unanimous passage by the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates of legislation (SB 276/HB 358), introduced by Senator James N. Mathias, Jr. (District 38) and Delegate Norman H. Conway (District 38B), that allows notation of ‘veteran’ status on drivers’ licenses and identification cards, Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown issued the following statement:
“I applaud the Maryland General Assembly for their unanimous support of this important step forward for Maryland’s Veterans. Creating a ‘Veteran’ status on Maryland drivers’ licenses is a simple way to help us connect Veterans to numerous State programs and initiatives by better identifying those who are eligible. It will also make it easier for Veterans to identify themselves when accessing the various benefits, discounts and services they have earned. I would like to thank Senator Mathias and Delegate Conway for their leadership on this effort to help us better serve those who have bravely served our country.”
The bill passed the Maryland Senate today by a vote of 46-0 and the House of Delegates by a vote of 136-0 on March 8th. Lt. Governor Brown testified in favor of the bill before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee last month. Creating a ‘veteran’ status on Maryland drivers’ licenses was also a recommendation made last year by the Veterans Behavioral Health Advisory Board, which was chaired by the Lt. Governor.
Lt. Governor Brown, a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and the nation’s highest-ranking elected official to have served a tour of duty in Iraq, leads the O’Malley-Brown Administration’s efforts to provide veterans with better services and resources. Since taking office in 2007, Lt. Governor Brown has championed successful efforts to pass the Veterans Behavioral Health Act, protect veterans’ business loans programs and fully fund the Iraq and Afghanistan Scholarship Program. Last year, the Lt. Governor launched the Mil2FedsJobs web portal, located on the Maryland Workforce Exchange (MWEjobs.maryland.gov), the first of its kind in any state to directly match transitioning service members with careers in the Federal Government.
Wounded Warrior ProjectT (WWP) announced today the upcoming dates for Soldier Ride, presented by GEICO, the premier fundraising event for WWP programs and initiatives to ensure this is the most successful, well-adjusted generation of Wounded Warriors in our nation’s history.
Each Soldier Ride is a one-day cycling event to help wounded warriors restore their physical and emotional well-being and to raise awareness for our nation’s Wounded Warriors who battle the physical and psychological damages of war.
2012 Soldier Ride Upcoming Dates:
WASHINGTON, D.C.: April 19 – 22, 2012
CHICAGO: June 14 – 17, 2012
NEW YORK: July 18 – 22, 2012
GERMANY: July 29 – Aug. 7, 2012
SEATTLE: Sept. 13 – 17, 2012
NORTH FORK: Sept. 26 – 30, 2012
PHOENIX: Oct. 18 – 21, 2012
NASHVILLE: Nov. 1 – 4, 2012
SAN ANTONIO: Nov. 15 – 18, 2012
Warriors of all ability levels cycle in Soldier Ride. There are state-of-the-art adaptive hand cycles, trikes, and bicycles to accommodate warriors with various injuries and disabilities, as well as unmodified road bikes for riders not requiring adaptive equipment.
Community support is an essential part of the emotional healing process for many of these wounded warriors. Also a great way to show thanks, Wounded Warrior Project encourages communities to line the streets to welcome their local heroes as they cycle through town. Route maps and volunteer opportunities are available!
Excerpt from press release from the Senate HELP Committee:
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) released new Department of Defense (DoD) data showing that for-profit colleges received half of all military Tuition Assistance (TA) dollars – $280 million out of $563 million spent last year on the program that gives service men and women the opportunity to take college classes while on active duty. This new information underscores the impact of for-profit colleges’ aggressive recruiting on bases and military-related websites. It also emphasizes the importance of strengthening eligibility requirements for colleges participating in the TA program in order to ensure that servicemembers and their spouses are getting a quality education and taxpayer dollars are not being wasted.
“Military tuition assistance has long served as a key element in the professional development of our nation’s all-volunteer Armed Forces. The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) believes more must be done to ensure the highest quality outcomes from this investment in our most precious resource, our military men and women,” said VADM Norb Ryan, USN (ret.), President of MOAA.
Six of the top 10 TA recipients are for-profit colleges. Those six alone pull in more than two-thirds of all TA dollars going to the for-profit sector.
A HELP Committee analysis of student outcomes at four of those companies shows that 60 percent of students dropped out of the schools less than a year after enrolling.
The HELP Committee has documented additional problems at several of the companies in the top 10:
Bridgepoint employs 1,700 recruiters but just 1 job placement counselor while numerous students log complaints about the lack of support services.
TUI received a citation from the Department of Education for financial aid mismanagement in 2009 and its accrediting agency is currently reviewing its accreditation status.
A bigger share of military educational benefits goes to for-profit colleges with questionable or unknown outcomes than any other federal education program.
For-profit colleges are rapidly increasing the amount of TA benefits they take in, with one company demonstrating a 199 percent increase in a two-year period.
For-profit colleges are taking in more than 60 percent of the tuition assistance available to military spouses through the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) program.
Four of the top 10 schools receiving MyCAA funds are largely unregulated by the U.S. Department of Education.
Today’s announcement follows last fall’s HELP Committee analysis revealing that the top 10 recipients of Post 9/11-G.I. Bill education benefits include eight for-profit higher education companies, even as students attending colleges operated by these companies have a one year drop-out rate of almost 60 percent. Together, those eight companies collected $626 million last year.
Senator Harkin, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has conducted an investigation into the for-profit college sector over the past year and released a report in December 2010 on the industry’s recruitment of veterans.
If a service member served aboard any of these ships during the described periods in this list and they have any of the 14 diseases recognized as Agent Orange related, they may have a creditable claim for disability compensation from VA.
Find more info on Agent Orange exposure, along with the list and description of the 14 presumptive diseases for Agent Orange exposure, on the Department of Public Health’s Website.
Here are some exciting FREE opportunities for the injured, ill and wounded veteran community-
Free with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Wounded Heroes Foundation- A collaborating effort to offer a FREE camp for wounded, ill or injured military personnel who are interested to learn more about winter sports. The camp will take place February 23-26 in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and includes introductions to the sports of: downhill skiing, cross country skiing, biathlon, sled hockey and more. Check out their flyer for details: 2012WinterMilitaryCampFlyer Application: www.ricsports.org/military.
Free paralympic military camp opportunities in 2012 hosted by the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, AL. The application can be accessed online. Check out their flyer for details on events taking place February through September: Lima Foxtrot 2012.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is releasing for public comment a draft of its strategic report to address key issues facing women Veterans. The plan outlines steps for improvements to care and services for women Veterans that are sustainable, accountable and a part of the department’s culture and operations.
