Vet Center and Jackson VA Partner For Outreach

(PRESS RELEASE) — The Jackson Vet Center and the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center are launching a collaborative initiative to reach out to veterans and make personal veteran to veteran connections throughout the state of Mississippi and parts of Louisiana over the next year. The “VA2Vets” campaign focuses on focuses on decreasing the barriers to obtaining healthcare by providing access and connection to services where Veterans and their families live especially in rural areas. Through March 2015, Vet Center and Jackson VA counselors will visit 51 Mississippi counties, 13 Louisiana parishes and 4 Arkansas counties. Mobile Vet Centers will be deployed in each county to support the outreach events.

“We are working with county veterans service officers, veterans service organizations, college campuses and anyone who would like to help us reach out to veterans,” Robert Cheeks, Vet Center Team Leader, said.

The Vet Center Program was established by Congress in 1979 out of the recognition that a significant number of Vietnam era vets were still experiencing readjustment problems. The goal of the Vet Center program is to provide a broad range of counseling, outreach, military sexual trauma and referral services to eligible veterans in order to help them make a satisfying post-war readjustment to civilian life. Vet Centers are community based and part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Congress has extended the eligibility to veterans who served during other periods of armed hostilities after the Vietnam era identified as Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Kosovo/Bosnia, WWII, Korean War, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The family members of all veterans listed above are eligible for Vet Center services as well. Vet Centers also furnish bereavement counseling services to surviving parents, spouses, children and siblings of service members who die of any cause while on active duty, to include federally activated Reserve and National Guard personnel.

In addition to counselors from the Vet Center, Jackson VA eligibility and enrollment specialists will be on-hand to assist veterans with access to healthcare.

“Our goal is to provide healthcare to every eligible veteran in Mississippi who wants VA healthcare,” Jackson VA Medical Center Director Joe Battle said.

For more information, contact Robert Cheeks, Vet Center Team Leader at 601-965-5727.

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