|
|
|
| |
 |
| Resources for Veterans, Active Duty Military, Families, & Community |
 |
|
Use the TexVet Web site to learn about people who want to help with health, housing, employment, education, and many other services for people and families who have served in all branches of the military. It is for people on active duty as well. It also is for people who help veterans, family members or people on active duty.
If you do not find what you are looking for on the Web site, and you need to speak directly with an information and referral specialist, please dial 2-1-1. This is a non-emergency telephone service that provides information and referrals from local organizations across Texas. When you speak with a 2-1-1 Texas specialist, it could be to your benefit to explain to them what your military or military related status is, but that is not a requirement, and the specialist will not ask about that unless you mention it. All information you share with a 2-1-1 Texas specialist is confidential.
|
To get started, just click the "Get Started Now" button below!
 |
| | | Free Business Training Offered to Disabled Vets |  | |
| POSTED: 2/25/2008 3:11:10 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | The Mays Business School at Texas A&M, as well as Florida State, Syracuse and UCLA, are offering a free business short course for disabled Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Known as the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, the nine-day program is intense, rigorous, and challenging. Through a series of training modules experienced faculty and successful entrepreneurs help participants learn how to start and run their own businesses.
All applications are handled through Syracuse University, where the program originated. The A&M session starts in August.
Those accepted likely will be routed to the school closest to them, said Dick Lester, the professor who will lead A&M’s bootcamp. And, because Syracuse and UCLA have teaching hospitals close by, severely disabled vets could be offered programs at those universities.
| | |
| |
| | | Congress Members Propose ‘GI Bill for Life’ | | |
| POSTED: 2/20/2008 3:01:09 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | Some members of Congress are trying to change the GI Bill to make veterans’ education benefits good for life.
A Hearst news service report quotes Washington Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen, a sponsor of the bill, who said the current law is "arbitrary" and outdated because veterans might have to put off their post-military education so they can begin new jobs or because they are recovering from injuries -- even while the GI Bill clock is running.
Under the current law, veterans have to use their education benefits within ten years after leaving the military. The report said the proposed legislation might become part of a broader bill revamping other benefits for veterans as well. | | |
| |
| | | Active Duty Diagnosis of PTSD Now Sufficient for VA | | |
| POSTED: 2/20/2008 12:02:08 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | If a service member is diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while on active duty, that diagnosis now will also be recognized by the Veterans Affairs Department.
An announcement by Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. James B. Peake has directed all VA regional offices to recognize that veterans diagnosed with PTSD while on active duty also will be recognized as having PTSD for VA purposes.
Akaka said this will hasten treatment by the VA and leave more time to reduce “the staggering backlog of veterans' claims." | | |
| |
| | | Work Leave Law Expanded to Include Military Families | | |
| POSTED: 2/5/2008 6:42:12 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | Congress has changed the federal Family and Medical Leave Act so that family members now can take time off from their jobs in order to be with military service members before and after they are sent to war.
The law change spells out that requests for leave from work for the family members must be treated, by their employers, in much the same way as requests from other employees who wish to take time off to care for a newborn, an elderly parent or a family member who is ill or disabled. It is still up to each employer to decide whether and how the employees might be compensated during their absence. | | |
| |
| | | Study Finds Many Iraq War Brain Injury Symptoms are PTSD, Depression | | |
| POSTED: 1/30/2008 6:48:16 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | A new study of soldiers returning from Iraq has found that, while many have suffered mild blast-related concussions, there is no easy way to tell which symptoms are due to physical damage and which are from mental responses to the traumatic stress of war.
The new study results, published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that one in six soldiers returning from Iraq had suffered concussions and that brain injury made traumatic stress more likely. The study tied only one symptom - headaches - specifically to brain injury.
"The key finding in our study is that the majority of symptoms we might expect to be due to concussion are actually due to PTSD and depression," said Dr. Charles Hoge, a colonel and psychiatry chief at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research who led the study.
Thousands of returning soldiers have struggled with memory loss, irritability, trouble sleeping and other problems. And Imaging of the brain is being tested, but hasn't yet proven to be helpful. | | |
| |
| | | Demand Strong for Free Military Family Counseling | | |
| POSTED: 1/29/2008 11:55:32 AM | BY: TexVet Admin | A free counseling program for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and their families has opened in San Antonio.
Dan Ratliff, Ph.D., who leads the program at St. Mary's University said counselors will provide marital therapy, family play therapy and individual counseling at sites in San Antonio. The focus will be on less sever symptoms related to post-combat stress, but counselors will refer people who are more severely injured to specialists.
Call the Military Family Counseling Program at 210-431-4394 or the Family Life Center at 210-436-3226. | | |
| |
| | | New Court Aims to Divert Vets from Jail to Treatment | | |
| POSTED: 1/16/2008 4:23:26 PM | BY: TexVet Admin | Buffalo, N.Y. has created what might be the country's first court that handles criminal cases involving military veterans.
A Buffalo News report (Jan. 12) said the court will handle cases involving veterans with mental health or substance abuse problems. City Court Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who presides over the court, also supervises Buffalo's Drug and Mental Health courts.
A key factor for vets, the judge said, will be peer counseling. "We have close to 20 veterans who are volunteering as mentors to help them readjust to civilian life. It's amazing to see how one veteran talking to another veteran can help in encouraging treatment."
Texas has been experimenting with special courts as well. There are at least eight jail diversion projects in Bexar, Dallas, Ector, Harris, Jefferson, Midland, Travis and Tom Green counties, but none is yet specifically aimed at vets. | | |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
