DoD, services ramp up mental health support - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

DoD, services ramp up mental health support

When military chaplains look into the faces of military family members, they are beginning to see “the same 100-mile stare that we’re seeing with soldiers with [post-traumatic stress disorder],” the Army chief of chaplains said at a recent family forum. “This is a tough war, a long war.”

There are resources inside the gate and outside, “but sometimes it’s an issue of an individual who is so tired, we must walk them to the help they need,” said Maj. Gen. Doug Carter.

Military chaplains are a central element in the confidential assistance provided to families. They offer counseling as well as education on issues such as maintaining strong relationships during and after deployments.

But with multiple deployments compounding stress on families, defense and service officials have recently ramped up some other confidential counseling options for military families.

As of Sept. 15, active-duty members, mobilized reservists and their families can get free nonmedical professional consultations over the phone, said Mike Hoskins, special assistant in the Pentagon’s office of military community and family policy.

“We asked Military One Source to expand counseling to include telephonic consultation,” he said. “Some can’t make it to face-to-face sessions.”

The call to Military One Source, at (800) 342-9647, is toll-free. Overseas military and family members can call toll-free (800) 3429-6477, or overseas collect 1-484-530-5908. Phones are staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Each person can receive up to six phone consultations per issue, he said. Sessions are confidential and anonymous, unless a counselor has reason to believe the caller could harm himself or others.

When a service member or family member contacts Military One Source, it may be possible to receive the first consultation that day, but they try to get the first session scheduled within at least three days, Hoskins said. At a minimum, each consultant has a master’s degree in social work, psychology or another similar field. The contractor, Ceridian, hires consultants with prior military experience — either they have served or have been a military family member.

The sessions might help people deal with issues such as stress management, communication, grief, parenting skills and decision-making.

But it is not appropriate for complex issues such as drug or alcohol addiction, mental health problems, certain trauma-related conditions, or issues requiring a group setting, such as couples and family counseling, which still will be handled by face-to-face counseling, officials said.

Help is on the way

Last year, defense officials also expanded their roster of military and family life consultants, a mobile force of licensed clinical counselors with at least a master’s degree, who can assist families and troops when needed.

For example, at the request of Army Child and Youth Services officials, 23 consultants were provided for child and youth programs, said Barbara Thompson, director of the Pentagon’s office of family policy, children and youth.

And this summer, consultants were on site at camps run by Defense Department schools, services’ youth programs and the National Military Family Association’s Operation Purple camps, she said.

“When the services come to us, we can tap into a network of those who not only have their own professional training, but training in the military lifestyle,” Thompson said.

“We’ve recognized the issue of compassion fatigue, and have family life consultants in places like the Personal Effects Depot,” she said, where workers sift through belongings of those killed on active duty and prepare them for shipment to next of kin.

Common issues the consultants are dealing with for the Guard and Reserve are mobilization, deployment and reintegration; for many families their issues relate to communication between spouses, and the need to make sure children’s needs are met.

Knowing that finances are often the root of stress for many military families, defense officials also plan to field consultants who provide financial education and assistance. They augment services already available on military installations, and in National Guard armories and Reserve units.

Hoskins said consultants are required to publicize information about their services in the community so that families know how to reach them. The services also publicize such information.

Fifteen states are also involved in a pilot program that will provide three extra staff members to support state coordinators for family assistance for Guard and Reserve members and those who are geographically separated.

Training is planned for November. The goal is ensure the states have resources to augment what they currently provide for families, Thompson said.

“We see ourselves as part of the continuum of care, part of preventive care,” Thompson said. “If it goes beyond problem solving and life-coaching, we refer to the medical side of the house.”

The Army is looking to expand its nonmedical counseling, and the Pentagon’s office of health affairs is reviewing ways to assist in that effort.

“We’re all working very hard to make sure services are delivered in a variety of ways,” she said.

Expanding benefits

Meanwhile, Tricare contractors have been working to boost the number of mental health care providers in their networks. For example, officials with Triwest Healthcare Alliance, one of Tricare’s contractors, met with governors about the expansion of Guard and Reserve mental health benefits, and asked the governors to generally urge providers in their states to join the networks.

“There’s been quite a campaign to increase the number of providers,” said retired Army Col. Marge Crowl, now the director of behavioral health for Triwest. In Minnesota, the involvement of the National Guard, the governor and other officials have helped increase the number of health care providers in that state’s network from 904 to 5,005 over the past two years, while the number of behavioral health providers has increased from 86 to 771 over the same span.

Crowl said that in the states covered by Triwest, there are plenty of therapists in every area except child psychiatry — a shortage seen in many areas of the country.

“As far as the mental health network, providers do exist and they have timely appointments available,” she said.

Family members don’t need a referral for outside mental health care if they can’t or don’t want to go to a military treatment facility for some reason.

Families can receive up to eight visits through Tricare. “If they require more than eight, it has to come in through the contractor, but we don’t go back to the command,” Crowl said.

The services also have initiatives of their own. For example, the Air Force has trained about 500 mental health providers in evidence-based psychological interventions for PTSD, said Air Force spokesman Capt. Thomas Wenz.

The Air Force also has brought about 35 additional mental health providers into clinics to free up active-duty mental health providers to work in primary care clinics, which allows more beneficiaries access to mental health services on installations.

This program is now deployed in about half of the Air Force’s military treatment facilities, and will go servicewide as additional funding is received.