Welcoming Our Veterans Home – Unseen Injuries And The Power Of Community

It takes a community to welcome home the warrior

The community must be whole and well for the welcome to be effective

War-related trauma affects everyone who serves, not just those with direct combat experience. Its shockwaves radiate across individual, family, community and culture; body, mind, and spirit. Repeated trauma can unravel veterans’ connections with their families, peers, and communities – as well as within themselves. The community plays a critically important role in repairing and renewing broken connections.

The Coming Home Project is a San Francisco-based non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to alleviating the unseen injuries of war faced by veterans and their families. We promote wellbeing across the deployment cycle and provide support for successful reintegration into civilian life. Coming Home builds a living community where veterans come together to reintegrate with their families, peers, and communities – and within themselves. At our residential retreats, they share stories, struggles and accomplishments, practice meditation, yoga and qigong, enjoy expressive arts like journaling and movement, and recreational activities like kayaking and hiking, as they connect with services and resources in their communities, all in beautiful, serene settings. Our workshops are not psychotherapy, but they are therapeutic. Driven by peer support, they are facilitated by experienced psychotherapists, trained veterans, family members, and chaplains.

We also provide self-care retreats and resilience training for healthcare providers who serve veterans and in military treatment facilities such as Walter Reed and VA’s around the country. These programs alleviate and prevent burnout and compassion fatigue, helping to ensure continuity of services

By: Craig Newmark
http://govinthelab.com/welcoming-our-veterans-home-%E2%80%93-unseen-injuries-and-the-power-of-community/

Vets with PTSD, government reach settlement

WASHINGTON -- More than a thousand Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder would be given lifetime disability retirement benefits such as military health insurance 

under the terms of a settlement reached between the government and the veterans.

Attorneys for the veterans, the Justice Department and the military jointly filed a motion on Thursday that spelled out the terms. The settlement must be approved by a judge to be final.

It also affects another thousand veterans who already had lifetime retirement benefits, but would receive a higher disability rating from the military. All of the veterans affected by the settlement would potentially receive new monthly disability compensation.

The settlement stems from a 2008 class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington by veterans unable to serve, at least in part, because of the anxiety disorder who said they were illegally denied benefits.

The law requires the military to give a disability rating of at least 50 percent to troops discharged for PTSD, but each of the plaintiffs received a disability less than that, said Bart Stichman, co-executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, a nonprofit organization that represented the veterans.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/29/3802823/vets-with-ptsd-government-reach.html#ixzz1U0BckKkJ

By KIMBERLY HEFLING
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/29/3802823/vets-with-ptsd-government-reach.html