Vet Centers are conducting a survey to assess awareness of their services and barriers to care. Many Veterans and service members the Vet Center teams engage with say they were unaware of them but often remark they wish they knew about their services sooner. Some even say a Vet Center saved their life.
VA wants to determine whether Veterans, service members and their families know about Vet Centers and, if they do, what’s preventing them from seeking counseling, engagement and referral services. The more Vet Centers learn the more they can help.
Identifying barriers to care
Vet Centers are community-based counseling centers that provide a wide range of no-cost social and psychological services, including professional counseling to eligible Veterans, service members (including National Guard and Reserve components) and their families.
Vet Centers are looking to learn from individuals who are not yet connected to them about their awareness of Vet Centers or what prevents them from using their services.
A few minutes of your time could help save a life. As a Veteran, service member or family member, your input is very valuable. By completing this online survey, you will help Vet Centers understand how to increase their reach to eligible individuals.
By surveying non-Vet Center users in an approachable—and anonymous—way, Vet Centers anticipate that Veterans and service members can feel safe providing their honest feedback and opinions around access to counseling.
The information gathered will help Vet Centers reduce barriers to care and provide potentially life-saving services to more Veterans and service members in communities across the nation.
About Vet Centers
Vet Centers have more than 300 brick-and-mortar locations across the nation, and it offers a variety of counseling services to help Veterans and service members make a successful transition from military to civilian life or heal after a traumatic event experienced in the military.
Individual, group, marriage and family counseling are offered in addition to referrals and connection to other VA or community benefits and services. Vet Center counselors and outreach staff, many of whom are Veterans, are experienced and prepared to discuss the tragedies of war, loss, grief and transition after trauma.
The organization’s top priority is to reduce Veteran and service member suicide to zero. Taking a few minutes of your time to complete the online survey could help save a life.
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I had this awful experience in the DC area when I applied for disability (co-worker pressured me to do so). Told yes physically it was obvious I had a problem but gosh maybe I’d fallen after my service time. DAAAAA how can you thank me for my service and then call me a liar. Have since gotten a copy of my military exit medical from archives and it was identified then as well as in my medical records when I had the accident. Clarksburg VA medical center turned my VA opinion around from negative to positive. I love my visits to Louis Johnson and even my husband looks forward to medical appointments there. He likes the cafeteria and the store. I rate my Louis Johnson way above the medical care I have now allot higher then what I received in the DC area when I carried premium insurance coverage that I paid for myself because I had that bum knee.
These centers are a joke, and discriminatory to older Veterans. I have experienced this myself, for them to say different is a flat out lie!!! Use care in even trusting these Vet Centers!!!!
This 77 year-old Vietnam vet has been using Vet Center assistance for almost 15 years. NEVER felt discriminated against for age or anything else. Vet Centers and other VA health care have been enormously valuable to my mental and physical health. I’ve been volunteering in a VA Medical Center and a Vet Center for 12 years to help fellow vets receive the same kind of care.
I understand how you might feel that you aren’t getting the care you deserve. But I also see a lack of concern for my husband, not a Veteran, when he uses Medicare as a private citizen. At least the VA has an ombudsman you can contact if you are unhappy with your patient services at your local VA health center. My VA health center has a clinic just for women and I have my favorite nurses that have helped me navigate the VA system. An example is my Fav nurse telling me to apply for milage and no you cannot buy a used wheelchair from the VA, but you can get a new one.
I have benefited from the VA Aurora, Colorado Regional Center: pharmacy, physical therapy and physicians examinations and prescribed immunizations. I am very grateful to have been able to get support from the VA.
An old Vietnam Veteran Infantry Veteran. Hated when I returned back to USA. Very hard 2 years. Spent entire year in field
I appreciate this WEB sight I am a vietnam VET,