Introduction
The United States (US) has one of the best-trained, biggest, and most elite armies globally. The US army trains its troops to become warriors and defend their country’s freedom and national security. Veterans’ transition assistance is needed due to the challenges they experience after exiting the service in civilian life comprising homelessness, medical care, cost of living, and unemployment. The essay designs the specific interventions for the readjustment-counseling program for veterans transitioning from the military to civilian life.
Interventions
Transition Assistance Program
Currently, Transition Assistance Program (TAP) of military intervention is aimed at offering veterans and changing service members training resources and employment opportunities to support them successfully transition to civilian life in a way that is useful and efficient to the spouse and the service member. TAP is designed in coordination with the Department of Defense (DOD) and Veteran Administration (VA) led by the interagency task that helped members and their spouses pursue post-service goals and establish an individualized change plan to attain the needed readiness criteria for separation (Whitworth et al., 2020). In addition, TAP aligns the skills attained in the military with the career opportunities of a civilian.
Military OneSource’s Transitioning Veterans Consultation
The transitioning veterans’ specialty consultation purposes are to assist them in identifying goals, learning about the advantages available to them, and gathering a wide variety of resources to fulfill their needs. The sessions are customized to fulfill their unique needs and are accessible by video or phone. The intervention is designed for service members changing from military to civilian life (“Military to Civilian,”2022). It enhances actions to ensure all changing service members have access to and are aware of mental health services.
Boots to Business (B2B)
This intervention involves an entrepreneurial training and educational program that the Small Business Administration (SBA) offers as one of the Department of Defense’s TAP. This intervention aims to provide participants with a business ownership overview and is open to changing service members and their spouses (“Boots,” n.d). It is available freely at participating installations to members of the service and their dependents changing or retiring from the military.
Application of Research or Theoretical Perspective Guiding the Intervention
Transition Assistance Program
The Success in Transition (SIT) model applied for TAP intervention provides a guiding theoretical outline for a re-conceptualized TAP. The model applies the search terms of military transition, human transition, military readjustments, and reintegration and is grounded in the ecological military and service member reintegration and the adult transition theory; it incorporates key components of military transition (MTT) (Morgan et al., 2020). The model encompasses training and information that resolves the completely transitioning member comprising transformations to their psychological, military identity, and family needs (Whitworth et al., 2020). It seeks to offer an individually customized program to promote and train to change members as per their needs, goals, and strengths.
Military OneSource’s Transitioning Veterans Consultation
It has been recommended that human resource personnel (HRP) apply Person Organization fit theory to assess the experience of hiring people for companies. The military offers opportunities in several occupations same to those found in the civilian workforce such as medicine, law, and logistics, but veterans experience challenges in getting employment after changing from military to civilian life (Pudjiarti & Hutomo, 2020). The theory involves matching applicants’ skills, knowledge, and abilities with the company and evaluating how they fit the company
Boots to Business
The intervention supports the program to help military and service members with plans and goals, as they opt, for which path they can take in life ranging from education to owning a business or employment. Boots to business assist the program in offering transitioning military and service members’ spouses a general perspective of owning a business process, system, and opportunities (Froment, 2022). Hence, small business ownership and entrepreneurship present significant opportunities for veterans and service members as they change to civilian life.
Correcting the Problem from Micro, Mezzo, and Macro Perspectives
System theory can be applied to explore the problem on the micro, mezzo, and macro level. It overlaps a wide range of methodological and theoretical practices across several disciplines. The micro level will concentrate on resolving the obstacles social workers experience when they work with changing and post-military members of the service to get mental health services. The micro level would comprise working with families, people, and direct health care service providers to involve in assisting to solve problems or find solutions. Further, the mezzo level may resolve how social workers engage the community and agency in resolving the problem (D’Aoust & Rossiter, 2021). Additionally, the mezzo level concentrate on cultural modifications to assures the needs of the transitional and veterans are addressed and understood in tandem with wider social matters.
Based on the macro-level, the discussion will be on what social workers can do in the larger system to assist this extraordinary population, which comprises lobbyists, lawmakers, and advocators. Further, the macro would comprise other big systems that support the unique population, for example, lobbying for transformation in mental health laws, and championing large-scale social policy transformation with veterans institutions, and federal and state agencies (Forgey & Green-Hurdle, 2022). Therefore, there is a need to enhance both social workers working environment and veterans’ well-being.
Funding the Intervention
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) will fund the readjustment counseling program intervention. The VHA will finance the program intervention through social work, family and marriage therapy, and professional mental health counseling participants for two years (Patel et al., 2021). The VHA considers the problems presented by the program from the recommended rule that two-year restrict on financing are aimed to equalize the reward and obligated requirements of service across all the healthcare professions from the perspective of the veterans. The VHA trusts that a two-year limitation can offer full parity across the disciplines in the program to award scholarship awardees and offer for the equitable recruitment of people in the four healthcare experts (Federal Register, 2022). There is a need for the federal government to fund the program through VHA using its relevant agencies.
Plan for Implementation
The program could be designed to be implemented within two years. Further, the program needs to be subdivided into two phases each having to take at least a year to complete. The results of this program are expected to be evaluated based on each phase. The first phase will comprise TAP where the veterans will receive the necessary training and education to help them transition to civilian life. In addition, in the same phase, veterans will be introduced to consultation to determine their knowledge, skills, and abilities that can be deemed fit for them to secure employment opportunities in organizations (Federal Register, 2022). The second or last phase will comprise teaching them entrepreneurial skills or business to enable them to start their companies or businesses.
Conclusion
The projected results and outcomes of this program are enhancing veterans’ well-being, improving their social and economic welfare, and supporting them to change to civilian life. The veterans’ well-being will be enhanced through having access to community outreach and education, family advice, marital counseling, and relationship therapies. In addition, their social and economic welfare will be catered for through this program because veterans will have access to job opportunities through referral and demobilization services.
References
Boots to Business. (n.d). Web.
D’Aoust, R. F., & Rossiter, A. G. (2021). Caring for veterans and their families: A guide for nurses and healthcare professionals. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Federal Register. (2022). Readjustment counseling service scholarship program. Web.
Forgey, M. A., & Green-Hurdle, K. (2022). Military social work around the globe. Springer Nature.
Froment, L. (2022). SBA’s boots to business program: What you need to know. Web.
Military to Civilian. (2022). Web.
Morgan, N. R., Aronson, K. R., Perkins, D. F., Bleser, J. A., Davenport, K., Vogt, D., Copeland, L. A., Finley, E. P., & Gilman, C. L. (2020). Reducing barriers to post-9/11 veterans’ use of programs and services as they transition to civilian life. Web.
Patel, H., Damush, T. M., Miech, E. J., Rattray, N. A., Martin, H. A., Savoy, A., Plue, L., Anderson, J., Martini, S., Graham, G. D., & Williams, L. S. (2021). Building cohesion in distributed telemedicine teams: Findings from the Department of Veterans Affairs national Telestroke program. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1). Web.
Pudjiarti, E. S., & Hutomo, P. T. (2020). Innovative work behaviour: An integrative investigation of person-job fit, person-organization fit, and person-group fit. Business: Theory and Practice, 21(1), 39-47. Web.
Whitworth, J., Smet, B., & Anderson, B. (2020). Reconceptualizing the U.S. military’s transition assistance program: The success in transition model. Journal of Veterans Studies, 6(1), 25. Web.