APA Boosts Veterans' Outreach

Two work groups involved with APA's increasing focus on the mental health needs of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reported to the Board of Trustees last month (see above article).

Trustee-at-Large David Fassler, M.D., described recommendations from a joint work group of APA and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which laid out three tasks that APA and NAMI could undertake in the next few months:

Area 5 Trustee Mary Helen Davis, M.D., chair of the Ad Hoc Work Group on Veterans Affairs and Military Initiatives, reported several recommendations (see top article beginning on page 8) and an advocacy platform, which the Board endorsed. It calls on APA to “advocate for improved access to a continuum of mental health and substance abuse services for returning military and their families” and funding increases for research on PTSD, the needs of military women, and the psychiatric sequelae of traumatic brain injury. It also calls for stronger ties between APA and its district branch representing military psychiatrists and between APA and the Uniformed Services University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.