Continuing education
Addressing Military and Veteran Behavioral Health Challenges
A continuing education activity presented by the VCU School of Social Work. This program is designed for social workers and their community partners.
- Course description and objectives
- Agenda
- Program sessions
- About the facilitators
- Cost and registration
Course description and objectives
This six hour seminar focuses on two major themes: (1) the behavioral health challenges confronting members of our Armed Forces and recent Veterans, in particular the many challenges associated with combat service in Iraq and Afghanistan, including post traumatic stress and other prominent behavioral health concerns; and (2) the relationship challenges experienced by returning service members and combat veterans, including the challenges experienced in relationships with their spouses, children, extended family, and other loved ones, as well as their reintegration challenges related to work, school and community life.
Participants will be offered access to an array of information, including comprehensive behavioral health intervention guides emphasizing best practice approaches for engaging with military and veteran populations, as well as information on empirically-based strategies for working with military and veteran families and their loved ones. Seminar participants will receive information on an array of psycho-educational materials, including video resources, that have been developed for interventions with military and veteran populations including: an introduction to the concept of “BattleMind,” information on the concept of the “deployment lifecycle,” “return and reunion” intervention strategies after a combat deployment, and information from a comprehensive guide for military parents and educators designed to address the psychological needs of infants, school aged children, and adolescents when their parent is deployed and upon return from a military deployment. Seminar participants will have the opportunity to discuss and share their own experiences (personal and/or professional) related to military service and/or veteran status.
» View learning objectives [PDF]
» Review Military and Veteran resources
Category I contact hours: 6
Continuing education units: 0.6
Agenda
9 to 9:15 a.m.
Introductions
Dungee-Anderson
9:15 to 9:45 a.m.
The Human Dimensions of Military Service: Military Culture 101
Martin
9:45 to 10:15 a.m.
Enhancing Our Awareness of the Behavioral Health Challenges Confronting our Military Members and Recent Combat Veterans
Martin
10:15 to 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 to 11:45 a.m.
Addressing the Behavioral Health Challenges Confronting our Military Members and Recent Combat Veterans: Clinical Interventions and Best Practices
Yarvis
11:45 a.m. to noon
Questions/answers
Noon to 1 p.m.
Lunch
1 to 1:10 p.m.
Overview
Martin
1:10 to 2:15 p.m.
Understanding the Challenges of Marriage, Parenting, and Family Life for Military Members and Returning Veterans: The Deployment Cycle and Reintegration Challenges
Franklin
2:15 to 2:30 p.m.
Break
2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Special Populations and Special Intervention Challenges: e.g., military women, wounded warriors, etc., stigma
Martin
3:30 to 4 p.m.
Questions/Answers
Evaluation and closing
Program sessions
Nov. 12, 2009
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
VCU University Student Commons – Commons Theatre
907 Floyd Avenue
Richmond, Virginia 23284
Phone: (804) 828-1981
Parking closest to the University Student Commons is in the West Main Street Parking Deck.
» Driving directions to all parking decks
About the facilitators
James (Jim) Martin, Ph.D., LICSW, BCD, Col (Ret) is a professor at the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. He earned his M.S.W. from the Boston College School of Social Work and his Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and a Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work with 39 years of professional social work practice. His scholarship, teaching and public service focus on behavioral health issues impacting individuals, families and communities; and his research and civic engagement address military and veteran populations. Col (Ret) Martin is a recognized national leader in the area of military family services and support. A retired Army Colonel, Col (Ret) Martin’s 26-year career in the Army Medical Department included clinical, research, as well as senior management (command) and policy assignments. Col (Ret) Martin was the senior Social Work Officer in the Persian Gulf Theater of Operations during the first Gulf War and edited The Gulf War and Mental Health: A Comprehensive Guide(1996). He was lead editor and co-author of The Military Family: A Practice Guide for Human Service Providers in 2000. Col (Ret) Martin was a primary author of the monograph What We Know about Army Families: A Review of More Than Twenty Years of Army Family Research. He has served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on a variety of studies associated with the mental health of combat veterans from the Persian Gulf War, as well as OEF/OIF veterans. Col (Ret) Martin participated in the establishment of the National Demonstration Program for Citizen Soldier Support at the University of North Carolina and served as the Center’s Acting Director (2006-07). In this role, he was a member of the North Carolina Governor’s Taskforce on Support to Returning Veterans and their Families. He is a current member of the Maryland Governor’s Veterans Behavioral Health Advisory Board and the Maryland National Guard Adjutant General’s Joint Steering Committee on Services to Maryland Veterans and Families. Col (Ret) Martin served three terms of elected office on the Board of Directors for the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work and he is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Center for Clinical Social Work.
Jeffrey Yarvis, Ph.D., LCSW, BCD, LTC, U.S. Army, was recently selected to be the first Integrated Service Chief of the new Walter Reed National Medical Center Adult Outpatient Behavioral Health Clinic. He currently serves as an assistant professor of Family Medicine and director of Social Work at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, M.D., where he heads up a Practiced Based Research Network. He is also an adjunct professor of Social Work at VCU’s NOVA Campus in Alexandria, Va. For his academic and clinical efforts on PTSD he was named Uniformed Services and U.S. Army Social Worker of the Year in 2008 and inducted into the Order of Military Medical Merit and his high school hall of fame. A noted military scholar with more than 22 years of service, LTC Yarvis has presented his work at numerous international medical conferences, published his work on traumatic stress in several peer reviewed journals, and published a book on subthreshold PTSD. He is currently writing several book chapters in a new publication on military psychiatry in collaboration with the National Center for PTSD and the Office of the Army Surgeon General. He has practiced internationally with disaster, domestic violence, child abuse, accident and war-induced trauma across many different cultures and populations. LTC Yarvis holds a M.Ed. from Cambridge College, M.S.W. from Boston College, and a Ph.D. from The University of Georgia and is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College. His doctoral research was conducted with Veterans Affairs Canada on posttraumatic stress disorder. Among his numerous decorations and commendations for years of service and multiple deployments, LTC Yarvis has received the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge for distinguished service under fire.
Keita Franklin, M.S.W., LCSW is currently a doctoral student at the VCU School of Social Work with an interest in military families impacted by war. Before pursuing her doctoral education, Franklin worked as a civilian social worker for both the Air Force and the Army at McChord AFB, Wash., Patch Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany, and Ft. Belvoir, Va. She has provided services and managed programs for active duty personnel, veterans and their families including crisis counseling services, child abuse and domestic violence prevention and response (stress, anger management, parenting education, home visiting services), sexual assault prevention and response and suicide prevention.
Delores Dungee-Anderson, Ph.D., LCSW, CSOTP, is an associate professor and director of the VCU M.S.W. Program. She received her M.S.W. from VCU and her doctorate in Social Work from Howard University. She is a clinical social work practitioner and has extensive training and practice in the area of trauma, neuroscience, personality disorders and dissociative disorders. She serves as a site visitor for the Council on Social Work Education and as a faculty mentor in the Hartford CSWE Gero-Ed Curriculum Development Initiative, focused on infusion of content on aging in curricula of CSWE accredited social work programs in the U.S. She is a NASW-VA Clinical Supervision and Licensure Preparation Trainer. She chairs the Clinical Practice Track of the Council on Social Work Education’s Annual Program Meeting.
Cost and registration*
Regular: $110
Student: $55 (with current I.D.)
Senior (65 and older): $85 (with current I.D.)
VCU faculty and current School of Social Work field instructor: $85
VCU School of Social Work Alumni Association member: $85
» Join the VCU Alumni Association
Agency group of three or more: $85 each
Agency group of 10 or more: contact Linda Gupta at (804) 828-3405.
* Includes lunch.
Registration opens Oct. 1, 2009.
Registration closes on Monday, Nov. 9, 2009 at 9 a.m. Payment must be received by the close of registration. **
**Please print a copy of your online registration. Regular attendees may pay by credit card. Other attendee types must follow the directions for their attendee type at the bottom of their printed registration. In order to be eligible for a discounted rate, you must mail or fax the requested documentation. Please mail your check along with requested documentation to the address on that page. Alternatively, once requested documentation has been submitted, call Angela Basmajian at (804) 828-0403 to pay by credit card.
Please read the Registrations Policies [PDF] prior to registration.
Register online at
www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/conf/socialwork/register.asp?cid=98.
Participants may register for CEUs by completing a CEU registration form and making a check payable to the VCU School of Social Work in the amount of $15 on the day of the event. No cash or credit cards will be accepted for this purpose.
Questions?
Contact Angela Basmajian at (804) 828-0403 or sswce@vcu.edu.