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Training for Community Providers

Community providers play a key role in providing psychological health care for service members and veterans. It is important for these providers to enhance their military cultural competency in order to improve communication and trust with their military patients and avoid potential adverse impacts on the treatment process and outcomes. Below is a list of training organizations and specific trainings applicable to clinical providers. The organizations below provide CEUs for providers at no cost to the individual.

Training Organizations

  • Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP)
    • The CDP trains military and civilian behavioral health professionals to provide high-quality, culturally-sensitive, evidence-based behavioral health services to military personnel, veterans and their families.
  • Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS)
    • The CSTS advances trauma-informed care through cutting edge research, education and training, and resources.
  • National Center for PTSD
    • The National Center for PTSD is dedicated to research and education on trauma and PTSD.
  • Give an Hour
    • Give an Hour’s mission is to develop national networks of volunteers capable of responding to both acute and chronic conditions that arise within society, beginning with the mental health needs of those who serve and their families.

Military Culture Training

  • VA Community Provider Toolkit
    • Features key tools to support the community mental health providers who serve veterans. Providers can find information on connecting with VA, understanding military culture and experience, as well as tools for working with a variety of mental health conditions.
  • VA National Center for PTSD Understanding Military Culture
    • The continuing education course presents important information regarding military demographics, branches, rank, status, and stressors. The author provides useful terminology and visuals to help the viewer understand military culture.
  • CDP Military Culture for Healthcare Professionals
    • Designed by military culture experts working as part of a DoD/VA collaborative effort to help health care professionals become more culturally aware by providing education, tools and resources for their clinical practice. The site provides four modules of the Military Culture: Core Competencies for Healthcare Professionals course: 1) Self-Assessment and Introduction to Military Ethos, 2) Military Organization and Roles, 3) Stressors and Resources and 4) Treatment, Resources, and Tools.
  • CDP Addressing the Psychological Health of Warriors and Their Families
    • A one week training course on deployment-spectrum behavioral health concerns facing the military population. It is offered four times per year in different regions of the country to non-military or civilian licensed mental health providers, to include psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists who are actively treating active duty, National Guard or reserve personnel, veterans, or their families or plan to actively treat this population.
  • Star Behavioral Health Providers (SBHP)
    • A resource for veterans, service members and their families to locate mental health professionals with specialized training in understanding and treating military service members and their families. Those listed in this registry have completed a series of trainings that are intended to make them better able to understand, assess and counsel members of the military.