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WBV Grantees Are Located Around the United States and Focused on Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families

• Seven sites across the United States — California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and North Carolina — use WBV funds to address needs and fill gaps in mental health services provided to military members and their families.

WBV Programs Offer a Range of Services

• Grantees focused their services on maximizing impact and aligning with the WBV aim of establishing sustainable programs that support the mental health needs of service members, veterans, and families through public-private partnerships.
• Activities were concentrated in four areas: delivering clinical services, training providers, raising public awareness, and creating referral networks.

Strategic Efforts Are Needed to Promote Sustainability and Address Emerging Challenges

• As public and philanthropic support shifts and resources continue to decline following the drawdown of U.S. forces deployed overseas, programs must continue adapting to sustain offerings and meet the demand for care.
• Improved use of telemedicine, information technology, and public-private partnerships are promising approaches for bolstering mental health access and quality.
• Adopting a system-of-systems approach can serve to improve coordination, integration, and sustainability of these programs over time.

Over the past decade, there have been a growing number of efforts designed to support service members, veterans, and their families as they cope with deployments. Addressing the mental health consequences associated with these deployments has been a priority focus area across the government and nongovernment sectors. The Welcome Back Veterans (WBV) initiative was launched in 2008 by Major League Baseball and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation to support organizations that, in turn, provided programs and services to support veterans and their families. Since WBV's founding, it has issued grants to academic medical institutions around the nation to create and implement programs and services designed to address the mental health needs of returning veterans and their families. Since 2013, WBV has made strides in assisting service members, veterans, and families and in facilitating collaboration among systems of care in local communities. However, strategic efforts are needed to promote sustainability and address emerging challenges as individual programs move toward greater coordination with others in the system of care for veterans. WBV grantees and other programs must continue adapting to sustain their mental health service offerings to meet the demand for care but also to improve integration and coordination. Expanding collaborative networks and adopting a system-of-systems approach may help private mental health care programs like WBV continue to build capacity and have a positive effect going forward.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Understanding and Influencing Federal Health Systems of Care for Mental Health

• Chapter Three

  Role of WBV Initiative in Strengthening Systems and Extending Community Capacity

• Chapter Four

  Understanding a Rapidly Emerging and Evolving Landscape

• Chapter Five

  Looking to the Future: Facilitating a System-of-Systems Approach