It’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month and The Sheridan VA Medical Center is using that opportunity to highlight their extensive support programs for veterans. Through transitional work and supported employment programs, the Sheridan VA will give veterans the chance to dramatically improve their mental health and involve them within their communities.
In the past, the VA has been subject to criticisms of being insufficient in addressing veterans needs. However, Sheridan VA’s Psychosocial Rehabilitation Supervisor and former combat veteran Julie Holewa said that’s changing.
“The VA has really stepped up to the plate,” said Holewa. “We've enhanced all of those vocational programs and even this year we've expanded [more] to help us support veterans in substance use disorder”.
The programs Holewa referred to are the Transitional Work program and the Supportive Employment program, both falling under the Veterans Health Administration branch of the VA.
The Transitional Work program is focused on helping veterans with limited barriers to employment. These barriers can exist as trouble with job searching, struggling with day-to-day medication, issues interacting in certain social settings and even legal barriers to employment such as D.U.I’s. Workers at the Sheridan VA engage one on one with veterans to address these issues and seek employment. Not only that, but the Medical Center can offer temporary, paid, “practice” work, as Holewa referred to it.
The Supported Employment programs refers to assistance given to Veterans with a serious mental illness (SMI). Where the transitional work tries to help veterans towards a more independent work-life balance, the Supported Employment program recognizes the long term challenges faced by Veterans with SMI and is therefore a “time-unlimited” plan. This means veterans can stay in the program as long as needed, and will receive more personalized attention in their efforts to find work.
Both programs have a focus on helping veterans who want to find work to find it within their communities. The medical center builds relations with local business and community groups specifically to ensure veterans can make these connections that help to find purpose after service. Even if issues arise during the process, be them related to mental health, work-environment, or personal life conflicts, the support teams will work closely with veterans to solve it. In one case, Medical Center staff had spent the day with a veteran traveling around town seeking work and brainstorming career paths they could begin working toward. Holewa sees it as giving veterans their own team of support staff.
“Like you remember the old Verizon commercials, where you have this big team of people behind you?” said Holewa. “That's really what this looks like, because you know, they could hire anybody on the street, right? They could hire any veteran off the street, but folks that are working with our program, have that support.”
Holewa implored veterans to reach out to the VA and discuss enrollment, even those who feel they may already be secure in their health and work.
“So it's a service that's granted to all veterans, whether you use it or not. [But] if you sign up, you're helping your buddy. Because essentially, we have a better count of who's out there…So even if they don't use the service more than once a year, it helps the buddy behind them, because legislatively, we put funding in place for who we know we're going to serve. And that's all we want to do…let them know we're here for them,” said Holewa.
