For and About Veterans and Service Members

Reducing Stigma, Promoting Resilience

So far Pam Woll has produced two series of materials for and about returning and transitioning veterans and service members. Both are based on the belief that: Combat operational and post-deployment stress effects are signs, not of weakness, but of strength Stigma toward these effects is based on misunderstanding of how the human body works and a lack of knowledge about resilience. Materials available for free download are: Resilience 101:  Understanding and Optimizing Your Stress System After Deployment, including:  1) a workbook for service members and veterans and   2) a set of instructions for facilitators (trainers, therapists, or peer mentors) The Finding Balance After the War Zone  series, including:  1) a 100-page Clinician's Guide (written for civilian counselors and therapists) and  2) a pocket-sized booklet for service members and veterans

Pam Woll's current projects on this subject include:

• A report from a June, 2009 statewide collaborative meeting in Georgia, hosted by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, Division of Addictive Diseases, called How Do We Pave the Way Home?  At the June event, military and civilian stakeholders began a planning process for a multidisciplinary, collaborative response to the needs of service members, veterans, and their families.  A larger follow-up conference is scheduled for January 19 and 20 in Augusta, Georgia.
  
• Materials for employers and educators on the benefits of hiring/educating service members and veterans, with tools for creating a veteran-competent workplace or educational setting.  This project is the result of a collaborative effort between the national organization Give an Hour, the National Organization on Disability, and the Army Wounded Warrior Program, funded by the national organization NISH.

Pam is also very much interested in finding opportunities to work on two other critical challenges that require more help and resources, including:

• The needs and well being of service members' and veterans' families—particularly Reserve Component families, who may be isolated within non-military communities— before deployment, during deployment, during reintegration, and in the long-term process of managing and rebounding from the effects of post-deployment stress on the whole family
  
• The chronic and pervasive needs of veterans of past conflicts, particularly Vietnam-era veterans, many of whom have no access to benefits because their discharge status was compromised by the symptoms that we as a society did not understand at the time
  

As the Marines say, never leave a fallen comrade.  We should all say that.