Every service member will some day be a veteran. The transition to civilian status can be challenging, especially for wounded, ill, and injured warriors and their families, who are confronted with pressing issues of navigating medical care and federal benefits, as well as basic needs of finding housing and securing employment or enrolling in an educational program. Present, too, is the overarching issue of trying to establish not just a new place of residence, but a home—of laying down roots and integrating into a community. Having separated from the structure and support of a military environment, many families can quickly be overwhelmed by these challenges.
As our nation’s warriors return home, the same energy, resources, and intensity brought to bolstering their protection and medical care on the battlefield must be applied to ensuring consistent, long-term support. Both the DoD and VA provide extensive support—including case management services—to veterans as they transition to civilian life. However, to ensure truly successful reintegration, private citizens and organizations must reach out and actively participate in the process, creating a bridge between the DoD/VA and local communities.
It is essential that across the country, communities organize and engage their full wealth of resources—from education, to employment, to health care, and beyond—to provide meaningful and enduring support for our veterans. Though multiple initiatives and organizations exist, their efforts and offerings often are not linked to one another, nor to the exact needs of service members and their families. Also, many of these resources are privately directed and do not link with federal resources afforded to veterans.
The intent of the Bridge Home℠ Project is to help create more welcoming and livable communities for our veterans and their families. CP3 has joined with the USSOCOM Care Coalition and local community leaders to launch a pilot project in Charlotte, North Carolina focused on welcoming veterans and their families to the Charlotte area and providing an infrastructure of support as they integrate into the community.
The initiative will work in conjunction with and harness the strengths of resources ranging from the DoD and VA to national veteran support organizations, as well as North Carolina-wide and Charlotte-area businesses, educational institutions, and medical facilities. It will engage local communities and leverage their resources, along with those of the military health system and VA, and will include a metrics component that will measure success and generate data to guide future efforts.
The project will be structured to be both expandable to broader populations of veterans and exportable to other cities, both larger and smaller, throughout the United States. From the pilot project, a framework will be developed for use by other communities that wish to become Bridge Home℠ cities.
©2011 Center for Public-Private Partnerships
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.