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Greetings!
The Presidential Initiative to Support Military Families announced earlier this year (http://1.usa.gov/hETY6E) aims to ensure that military families have easy access to the services they need and deserve. Our military leaders know that the men and women who serve our country are only as strong as the families who stand behind them. I am delighted that Give an Hour™ -- with our more than 5,300 volunteer mental health professionals -- is in a position to assist with the psychological needs of our military men and women, their families, and their communities. We must not underestimate the power and necessity of communities to assist in the healing of and service to our military families. As always, we are grateful for your support in this undertaking. Take care, Barbara Van Dahlen, Ph.D. Founder and President Give an Hour™ |
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 Give an Hour™ Providers Give Nearly 37,000 Hours in Free Services
We are thrilled to announce the results of our March 2011 survey, which shows an increase of 153% over the same period a year ago.
Give an Hour™ periodically surveys its volunteer providers to assess its impact and effectiveness and to determine how programs and services can be adapted to best meet the needs of this population. We thank our providers for taking the time to help us measure the important work we are doing.
The March 2011 survey found 36,851.25 total hours have been donated in mental health services, not including volunteer hours spent on operations.
Using a nationwide average of $100 per hour for mental health services, Give an Hour™ providers responding to the survey have donated $3,685,125 since Give an Hour™ began providing these critical services in July 2007.
Give an Hour™ has nearly 5,300 licensed mental health professionals on its network, in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico.
"It is gratifying to see a continued increase in the hours our volunteer providers are giving. It lets us know that the work we are doing to encourage military personnel and their families to seek help is effective" says Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, founder and president of Give an Hour™. "Many of our providers are offering help in ways other than direct counseling - they are working on education and outreach in their own communities. This assistance is vital to our mission of reducing stigma," Dr. Van Dahlen adds.
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Give an Hour™ Hires Capt. Eric Rogers as Executive Director
Eric Rogers brings his unique experience as a soldier, social worker and leader in nonprofit management to fulfill the Give an Hour™ mission. He began his military career by enlisting in the U.S. Army as a mental health specialist and combat stress control team member in the 10th Mountain Division at Ft. Drum, New York. After deciding to pursue his master's degree in Social Work at Howard University, he was accepted as an ROTC cadet with a Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty scholarship. While earning his degree, Eric joined the 274th MP Company, DC National Guard and also worked in various community mental health agencies. Upon completion of his degree, Eric was commissioned into the 11th Psychological Operations Battalion, Army Reserves. He spent the next eight years pursuing a civilian career in the field of international adoptions. During this time, he served on the board of a humanitarian organization providing basic needs to orphans overseas, and on the board of an international social work organization. Because of his broad experience in adoptions, he served as a Hague Convention peer reviewer for the Council on Accreditation. As an active member in his local community, he participated on a Public Image Task Force of a local Township in Pennsylvania, and volunteered to assist Burmese refugees integrating into their new Pittsburgh community. Eric was called to Active Duty in 2005-2006 to serve as company commander in Iraq. In 2009, he deployed to Afghanistan, to embed with a counter IED team. Prior to reentering the nonprofit field, Eric served at the Pentagon in Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, a program that seeks to build resilience in soldiers by focusing on a holistic approach to their health. In his free time, Eric enjoys running, working out at the gym, and spending time with his wife and son. |
Aetna Insurance Company Creates
Give an Hour™ Initiative
The Aetna Insurance Company has graciously offered to work with Give an Hour™to recruit additional providers among the Aetna behavioral health network, advertise volunteer opportunities to their employees, and develop military clinical training for GAH providers. We are grateful to Aetna for exploring these and other areas of collaboration.
Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving approximately 35.3 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional, voluntary, and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life and disability plans, and medical management capabilities and health care management services for Medicaid plans. Its customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. For more information, visit www.aetna.com.
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 Emily Vincent Hired as
Administrative Assistant Emily Vincent volunteered with Give an Hour™ for three years until being hired as the administrative assistant in January 2011. She is a Kenyon College and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, graduate with bachelor's and master's degrees in History and a certificate in Public History. Her academic interests include peace and conflict studies, particularly the interaction between the home front and the war front. She has previously applied her analytical and problem-solving skills in higher education environments, most recently as a grants management specialist at Pennsylvania State University and as an administrative assistant on a $3.6 million VA Polytrauma Rehabilitation grant contract with the University of Pittsburgh. She has received training in conflict mediation and human resource management in nonprofits. She grew up in southern California and has lived in Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Currently residing in State College, Penn., with her husband, she enjoys yoga and natural horsemanship training in her free time. |
 Provider Spotlight: Dr. Charles RubioDr. Charles Rubio is a clinical psychologist who has spent years serving the military community in and around Auburn, Ala., and Fort Benning, Ga., where more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees, and civilian employees live and work. "I came here in the 1980s to enter private practice and never left because I liked the area so much," Charles says. One of his many services to veterans is working with Auburn University to help veterans returning to school. "A colleague of mine has created a bridge program for student veterans so that they can get to know each other and better prepare for their entry or return to academia. It's critical to get these soldiers off to a strong start." Charles heard about Give an Hour™ through email over three years ago and immediately signed up to offer pro bono support." I often charge a sliding scale anyway for these guys and gals, and always keep time open for my Give an Hour™ work." He often gets to know the military families in the community through wives of soldiers who come to him with anger management issues. "At first I see the spouse and then if all goes well, we progress to couples therapy. The adjustments post deployment can be huge for these young couples." Lyman Ward Military Academy, a small military boarding school for students from grades six through twelve is twenty minutes away. Charles spends one morning a week seeing cadets for mental health and behavioral issues and is always on call for them. "A good number of these children come from military families and have issues because of moving around so much and having parents deploy more than once. My wife's father was in the military so she gives me insights that I myself might not have about what they go through." Most of Charles's clients are young people, high schoolers and college students from Auburn University, "and about five percent military," but he has also counseled the occasional older veteran. "I worked with a Vietnam veteran in his sixties. He contacted me because I had worked with his daughter in the past. It seems he was at a bank one day and the teller was giving him the runaround, and suddenly he felt an overwhelming rage. Then he began to have flashbacks. He said, 'I had no idea that I would remember half this awful stuff.' " Charles is an ardent supporter of Give an Hour™. "These folks do so much for us, at the very least we should give them the help they need," he says. |
 Volunteer Spotlight: Rita Harris
Rita Harris joined Give an Hour™ as an organizational volunteer in November 2010. Since January she has been researching awards GAH is eligible for. She began by looking at federal funding and learned that GAH can apply for grants through the Department of Health and Human Services. From there, she went to private industries and has been working her way through the most profitable corporations in America. Almost all of them have foundations set up for their philanthropic works. With each of these, she is trying to find the name, amount, and a brief summary of the award, as well as a contact person and Web site. She sends a summary of her work each week and, for particularly promising grants, details next steps to apply for the award. In addition to our 5,300 mental health volunteers, Give an Hour™ relies on volunteers to assist with marketing, outreach, fundraising, and administrative tasks. If you have some time and talent that you would like to donate to Give an Hour™, we welcome your help. Visit: http://www.giveanhour.ning.com or contact our volunteer manager, Lisa Calixto, at lcalixto@giveanhour.org for more information. |
Those Soldiers Past
By Bradley Hintz
A whole batallion
clad in white
In tight formation
Bathed in light.
"Attention" comes the call
"Forward March" is the command
Off we start, through the hall
Of waving flags, saluting hands.
Our feet, they tire
Our throats, they burn
Our lungs on fire
For rest we yearn
Those Soldiers Past
They had no rest
Though arm in cast
Or wounded chest.
On they fought
For our rights
So we are taught
Of modern knights.
We march today
For Veterans bold
Blood did they pay
So we may grow old.
This poem was written by sixteen-year-old Give an Hour™ client, Bradley Hintz, reflecting on a Veteran's Day parade in November 2010. It is published with his permission.
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 VA Caregiver Support Program In May 2010, President Obama signed the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, legislation authorizing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish a wide range of new services to support certain caregivers of eligible post-9/11 veterans. You can meet some of the VA caregivers by visiting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRmAwZHYRFE. Caregivers are loved ones, family and friends, who are essential to the healing of sick and injured veterans, providing critical attentiveness in the home to complement the life saving work of the medical points of care in VA's hospital system. Transportation between home and VA alone is demanding enough, but their contributions go well beyond that. Their sacrifice is enormous, every day, year after year, for veterans, who safeguarded this nation. Caregivers are the VA's indispensable partners in military healthcare, and they deserve our nation's support. To learn more about services available to caregivers of veterans, visit http://www.caregiver.va.gov. |
 Kentucky Counseling Association Recognizes Michael McFarland, LMFT Michael McFarland, LMFT and Give an Hour™ provider, was recently honored by the Kentucky Counseling Association for outstanding leadership in coordinating the Give an Hour™ program in Kentucky. Michael is the Kentucky National Guard Director of Psychological Health. His efforts to recruit licensed mental health professionals to the Give an Hour™ network are helping to combat one of the Army's worst suicide problems in the nation, at Kentucky's Ft. Campbell. In addition, Mr. McFarland has worked to launch an online resource center for suicide prevention. Visit: www.kyca.org and click on "KCA Focus: Suicide Prevention" to see more about his work. |
 University of Maryland Researchers to Study Cognitive-Experiential Treatment for Combat-Related Nightmares Researchers at the University of Maryland are seeking participants for a study comparing two treatments for combat-related nightmares in OEF/OIF veterans. Recent studies have shown the effectiveness of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) in reducing the number and intensity of nightmares in trauma survivors. IRT focuses on "rescripting" nightmare narratives in session and has shown effectiveness in reducing the frequency of nightmares in sexual assault survivors and some combat veterans. However, contrary to current recommended treatment for combat-related PTSD (prolonged exposure therapy), IRT limits the trauma survivor's exposure to nightmare material. The University of Maryland researchers will compare the effectiveness of IRT with that of cognitive-experiential dream work, a three-stage manualized approach that focuses on exposure to nightmare material through detailed exploration of dream images, reexperiencing emotions in a controlled environment, associating to the images, working to find insight from the images, and rehearsing changes to the nightmare. In addition to eight weekly sessions, participants will undergo a screening interview and an assessment of their combat-related nightmares, sleep disruptions, and other trauma symptoms. OEF/OIF veterans who are interested in participating should contact Dr. Patricia Spangler in the Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, at pspangler@psyc.umd.edu or by calling 301-919-2271. |
Supporting Give an Hour™
Give an Hour™ is extremely grateful to our generous sponsors: If you are interested in individual or corporate giving, please contact Katherine Wilkins, director of development, at kwilkins@giveanhour.org. You may also make an online donation here: Donate to Give an Hour. |
Veterans Book Project
Hosts Workshops around 
the U.S.
The Veterans Book Project will be holding a workshop at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, from March 28 to April 4.
The Veterans Book Project teaches bookmaking to veterans as a way of processing their wartime experience.
At workshops held around the country several times a year, the books are authored collaboratively by artist Monica Haller and dozens of people who have been affected by, and have archives of, the current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In their printed format, the books provide a place or "container" for the great quantity of ephemeral image files that live on veterans' hard drives and in their heads. Each book stands both on its own and as part of the larger collection. The entire workshop is free of cost; in the past, veterans, spouses, siblings, and parents of veterans have contributed to the books. The best way to understand the project is to visit the Web site at www.veteransbookproject.com. You can sign up for a workshop by emailing veteransbookproject@gmail.com.
This spring workshops will also be held at San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif., March 16 to March 25; and in New York City, April 15 to May 1. Please visit the VBP Web site or email veteransbookproject@gmail.com for more information.
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If you are a provider and considering Unsubscribing, please know that you will no longer be able to receive important communications from GAH to all providers. Please also know that we try very hard to keep our group e-mails to a minimum.
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