Healthy Homecomings for Veterans
As Americans return home from war, the need for more and better efforts to ease their reintegration into society has substantially increased.
Since 2001, more than 30,000 American service members deployed in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been physically wounded. Many more experience psychological wounds, with reports suggesting an increase in rates of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence.
Between August 2008 and January 2009, a joint team from the Survivor Corps, the Veterans’ Coalition, and Booz Allen Hamilton worked together to identify the primary issues affecting reintegration and to bring together veterans, service members, and government, industry, and civil society leaders to begin solving the issues related to the traumatic effects of war.
The conveners conducted interviews with leaders from 21 organizations representing government, business, non-profits, academia, and veterans and their families to better understand critical reintegration issues. Five issue areas were identified: Reuniting with family; returning to work and school; accessing services, benefits, and information; rehabilitation; and rejoining the community.
To broaden the community of leaders working on these reintegration issues across organizational boundaries, the conveners held the Initiators Conference on the Community Reintegration of Service Members and Veterans in October 2008. This successful conference was followed by the Community Reintegration Summit in January 2009 at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C. Over 150 leaders worked together at this summit to explore the obstacles facing veterans as they reintegrate and to identify ways to ease the transition.
Though public, private, and civil sector organizations have worked hard to ease the reintegration process, it’s clear that more remains to be done. Overcoming these challenges demands a dedicated megacommunity™ of stakeholders who will commit their energy, coordinate their efforts, and collaboratively work on behalf of service members, veterans, and their families. Our study outlines what was learned during the Community Reintegration Summit, and recommends immediate next steps to capitalize on the momentum generated by the event.
Booz Allen’s Mark Belanger, Mike Magoon, Nicole Weepie, Kathleen Toone, Mark Frost, Beth Meagher, Dylan Stearns, and Dan Koh contributed to “The Path to Healthy Homecomings – Findings from the Community Reintegration Summit: Service Members and Veterans Returning to Civilian Life” - in addition to contributors from Veterans' Coalition and Survivor Corps.
study posted February 27, 2009
