Hannah and Ian Clayborn look for their father, Spc. Dwaylin Clayborn, among returning troops during a welcome home ceremony for soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard's 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Chris A. Durney.)
By Dr. William Brim, Center for Deployment Psychology, deputy director, Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury
DCoE’s Center for Deployment Psychology is concerned with the question: “Who is treating our guard and reserve servicemembers and their families after they leave active service and return to their communities?” Members of the guard and reserve are more vulnerable to chronic psychological health problems than active component service members, and it is vital that they have behavioral health providers who are trained to care for their needs.
All of our nation’s warriors, veterans and their families need their civilian providers to be aware of military culture and the impact that comes from a deployment. Patients report feeling frustrated when a provider fails to ask them about their military service or lacks knowledge of military ethos and culture.
A reason for guard and reserve members’ greater susceptibility to chronic psychological health concerns may be that after returning from duty, they often don’t have the same access to the military system of support and care as their active component brothers and sisters in arms. They may return to an inner city or a rural area for example, where they don’t have the kind of resources they would on base.
The Center for Deployment Psychology at the Uniformed Services University has the mission of training behavioral health professionals to work with servicemembers, veterans and their families. We have recently started reaching out to guard and reserve networks to develop a base of civilian behavioral health providers who can help.
We’ve been connecting with the National Guard Bureau’s state directors of psychological health to assist them in developing a network of providers in each state who are prepared to deliver quality care to guardsmen and their families. These state directors can serve as a helpful resource for reservists as well. In addition, we are exploring ways we can work with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs to develop a similar kind of structure as what we have with the National Guard Bureau.
We hear from providers all the time that they want to help, but are concerned about their lack of military knowledge and want to know more.
To answer their call and help our nation’s warriors, we’ve developed courses that teach providers about military culture, the stressors associated with each stage of the deployment cycle and effective treatments for some of the most common psychological health concerns affecting military members and families. The CDP offers one, two, three and five-day training courses specifically geared toward bringing these providers up to speed and hopefully increasing the likelihood that they will seek out opportunities to treat our warriors and do so with quality care.
We have now provided training courses in more than half the states and to date we have trained more than 3,000 civilian providers in military culture, deployment cycle stressors assessment of depression, managing suicidal behavior, and evidence-based treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and insomnia.
Through our efforts more providers are ready and motivated to provide quality care to our nation’s warriors. We look forward to continuing to bolster the networks of civilian providers available to help the underserved population of guard and reserve service members and their families.
*DCoE has health resource consultants available 24/7 at the DCoE Outreach Center, who can provide you with useful information and resources on psychological health and traumatic brain injury. The center can be reached by phone at 1-866-966-1020 or chat live online at www.dcoe.health.mil/24-7help.aspx.
*Be sure to check out the guard and reserve section of DCoE’s web site for resources and information on all things guard and reserve, and the July issue of DCoE in Action as well.
*For more posts on psychological health and traumatic brain injury, check out the DCoE Blog
