Happy Veterans Day!

On behalf of NAMI Montana, thank you to everyone who served and the people that love them.

The following video is an “Honor Song” by Thomas Camel and Roger Schourds, Vietnam Veterans from the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreilles tribes. They are assisted by Frank Tyro. The song is performed in front of the Eagle Circle Veterans Wall of Remembrance in Pablo, Montana.

Veterans Mental Health Care advocacy is a critical area for NAMI Montana. The opportunity to advocate for better care for the hidden wounds of America’s veterans was one of the main reasons I joined NAMI Montana in June of 2008. I believed that we could make a real difference by combining veterans mental health advocacy with NAMI’s massive network of families and years of policymaking expertise.

In the past year, NAMI Montana has:

• Served on the Creating Options for Veterans Expedited Recovery (COVER) Commission has completed its congressionally mandated tasks and provided recommendations to the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The COVER Commission’s charge required far-reaching examination of the treatment models used by VA in treating veterans’ mental health. Throughout its research and deliberation processes, the commission put the needs of veterans at the heart of its work. The commission strove to conduct a comprehensive, evidenced-based review of key treatment modalities; held public meetings; met with a broad range of organizations and clinical providers; made site visits to VA facilities in different regions; and, perhaps most importantly, directly engaged veterans throughout the nation using a variety of channels, including listening sessions and focus groups. Here is the link to the COVER Commission Report. https://www.va.gov/cover/
• Served on the Veterans Administration’s National Research Advisory Council to provide advice to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on the nature and scope of research and development sponsored and/or conducted by the Veterans Health Administration, to include policies and programs of the Office of Research and Development. Here is the link to the NRAC page that contains a fuller description of its tasks and charter. https://www.va.gov/advisory/nrac.asp
• Served a leadership role in writing and passing the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act. The Hannon Act has been hailed as the most significant legislation for veterans suicide prevention in the past decade. It was unanimously approved by both the Senate, the House and President Trump. Here is a link to the legislation. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/785

NAMI Montana is incredibly grateful to the Trans-Montana Charity Ride for all of the support of our Veterans Mental Health advocacy efforts. We couldn’t maintain that level and scope of work without Trans-Montana’s generous support. You can find out more about that great event and how to support it at https://www.trans-montana.org/index.html

NAMI Montana Veterans Mental Health Advocacy Objectives for 2021

Each of these issues has been highlighted either by the COVER Commission or by the VA’s National Research Advisory Council.

• Document the services provided by peer support specialists, behavioral health specialists, health coaches, and chaplains in the Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) system to ensure that their roles are properly recognized and supported.
• Require an annual report by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) on how many veterans by geographic region are receiving access to care for treatment-resistant depression. (TMS, ECT, and Ketamine/Esketamine)
• Exclude VHA from the Paperwork Reduction Act, so they can effectively use patient feedback to improve and enhance mental health services.
• Ensure that the Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development has the funding flexibility to provide information technology support for research.
• Ensure that veterans with mental health conditions and brain injuries do not risk losing their disability by going back to work — regardless of how much money they make through that work.
• Offer an exercise benefit package for veterans under VA care that is the equivalent of those offered through Medicare Advantage plans.
• Develop a four-year pilot program of the VERA system that would explore a transition from a fee-for service funding model to a per-patient model of funding with financial incentives for improving population health and person-centered metrics.

Thank you for all of your support of NAMI Montana’s veterans mental health efforts. It’s a huge issue for our country and we have a long way to go to honor our commitments to America’s veterans and their families. But, we will keep fighting until the battle is won.

Sincerely,

Matt Kuntz

Executive Director

NAMI Montana

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NAMI Montana has a resource guide on our website for every county in Montana. Please let us know if anything needs to be updated for your county. http://www.namimt.org/county-resource-guides.html

The Treatment Scout website helps people find effective inpatient, residential, and other types of intensive mental health and substance abuse care. Find out more at https://www.treatmentscout.com/