WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs will hire 50 veterans of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) to provide outreach services to veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. They will join 50 other OIF/ OEF outreach counselors already hired by VA.
“How we care for our returning combat veterans will define VA for decades,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson.
The outreach counselors will brief servicemen and women leaving the military about VA benefits and services available to them and their family members. They will also encourage new veterans to use their local Vet Center as a point of entry to VA and its services.
“We believe that our outreach to veterans is most effective when the message is carried by their comrades,” said Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, VA's Acting Under Secretary for Health.
Outreach counselors visit military installations, coordinate with military family assistance centers and conduct one-on-one interviews with returning veterans and their families.
The new outreach counselors will be located in the 206 Vet Centers operated by VA throughout the country, especially near military out processing stations. They will be hired for a three-year period.
Vet Centers have been VA’s first line of contact for troops returning from combat for every war since Vietnam. For 26 years, counselors have provided services for the psychological and social readjustment needs of combat veterans, and prevented possible development of more chronic and delayed forms of war-related trauma.
VetCenter employees have seen more than 16,000 of the 244,000 combat veterans VA estimates have left the service since the start of the Global War on Terrorism.
