For Some Vets, Peer Counseling May Be More Helpful Than Traditional Mental Health Treatment
Speaker 1: 00:02 A growing body of research is showing the value of peer counseling for military veterans returning to civilian life programs where former service members support each other have become common around the country and in some cases have been shown to be more helpful than traditional mental health treatment from Los Angeles. Alyssa John Perry reports for the American Homefront project. Speaker 2: 00:25 [inaudible]. When Robert Hernandez got out of the army in 2004 after doing a tour in Iraq, he moved back to the LA area. The adjustment back to civilian life was hard. Speaker 3: 00:35 I was sleeping on a futon in my parents' living room working at home Depot. It was pretty much every day, if not every other day that I was drinking. Speaker 2: 00:44 This went on for about 11 years until a friend who he served in Iraq with som struggling. His friend called him up, asked if he wanted to work with vets in LA County through a program called battle buddy bridge. It's a vet to vet pure program where vets go through a week long training to become peer support specialists. After that they can help other vets get connected with services like housing, military benefits, and even mental health care. Hernandez was sold. He became a peer support specialist and now as a program manager of battle buddy bridge for him being around other military folks felt familiar. Speaker 3: 01:23 The rapport that we've built with these veterans, you know, and the connection we make like talking about our experiences like man, I went through the VA and I had to wait two months for an appointment. Like, dude, I get it. Speaker 2: 01:36 That's about support isn't just for the mentee. It also helps the mentor like Hernandez, in order to be a peer support specialist, you have to be enrolled in school. So Hernandez quit his job at home Depot, signed up to take classes at the local college and stopped binge drinking. His life has a purpose now he says, so that's helping other vets is what makes this program unique. That's according to dr Shelley Jane, she's a psychiatrist with the VA, Palo Alto and Stanford medical school and she studies peer support programs. Speaker 4: 02:09 The peers are people who have a lived experience with PTSD, but they're further along in their recovery. The idea is they share their personal story of recovery and they self-disclose about a lot of the obstacles Speaker 2: 02:22 on the issues that they faced. Sharing your own personal journey and struggles is something that regular mental health professionals don't do, but Dr. James research shows that vets really benefit from working with each other. Speaker 4: 02:35 They report being more socially engaged, more hopeful and empowered about their futures and the more engaged in the mental health care. Speaker 2: 02:43 Still, she says it's not clear. Pure support programs actually help treat PTSD. Dr Jane is studying that now in the back room of a large, drafty office building. Hernandez leads a training session for mentees who want to be peer support specialists. That's right. Two reflection workshops are about thinking about one of his tips. Reflect back on your own experiences so you can be better equipped to help others. Joe Gary is one of the mentees in attendance. He spent 26 years in the army serving several tours in the middle East. When he retired, he enrolled in classes at a local LA college. That's where he met a peer support specialist from battle buddy bridge. Speaker 3: 03:26 I felt comfortable talking to her about certain things whereas I didn't with other people. So it is relieving. Um, I could just come in anytime Speaker 2: 03:35 now he says he's looking to be the guy that vets come to for help, but he wants to learn more from experience vets like Robert Hernandez for Hernandez. He's been working on battle buddy bridge for five years now. Next step he says a master's in social work so he can continue his work with vets. Speaker 3: 03:55 It's like a little motivation for them to see like, you know, there is hope out there. There are people out there that want to help us Speaker 2: 04:02 and sometimes that help comes from the people who have lived through the same experiences. Joining me is a reporter, Alyssa John Perry, and Alissa, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. How did you find out about the battle buddy bridge program? Yeah, sure. So the Los Angeles County board of supervisors passed a motion last year to start up a peer to peer support program ran by the County for specifically vets, but it hadn't started yet. So I kind of just made some calls around and asked if there was a specific program they are modeling off of. And that's when someone brought up the battle buddy program here in Los Angeles. Now it sounds as if the veteran you profiled Robert Hernandez was pretty badly troubled before he got peer counseling, peer counseling. Did he try any other kind of counseling in the years he was struggling, you know, I don't know that he did. Speaker 2: 04:57 Um, especially formal counseling, but I know he did go to the VA and he got diagnosed with PTSD. Okay. So both the menu profiled or out of the service for quite a few years before they came into the battle buddy program. Can it also help vets who have recently left the service? I think so. I just really think it depends on that person, that vet and how far they are along in their own process of, you know, wanting help and accepting help. They did tell me at battle buddy bridge that the Vietnam vets and the world war two era vets are harder to reach because many of them don't know that they're entitled to VA benefits. So that's something also that they're trying to reach. Is the older vets. How much training do the peer counselors have in this program? It's a week long training. Um, I think that they have to do a certain amount of hours that add up to a week. Speaker 2: 05:48 And do the peer counselors refer, uh, their buddies, the guys that they're counseling to professionals if their problems are too big to handle? Yeah, they do do that. They, you know, if someone needs emergency housing or needs counseling and is in a crisis and there's just too much for someone who's only, you know, only had a week training. So they do have professionals, um, on standby and they're sort of like the middleman that can connect them. Did the vets you spoke with tell you why it's easier for them to open up to fellow veterans? You know, these vets said it was an understanding that vets have around one one another that civilian people don't have. Right. So you're going to war. Your life is threatened to constantly, you see your friends die in battle. Those are all experiences that are very unique. While they may not have served in the same war or same military branch, they, those kinds of experiences I think are very unique. Speaker 2: 06:46 And so that's what connects them. What events have to be in school to become peer support specialists? Yes. For this specific program, it's through the volunteers of America, the Los Angeles chapter. So for this program they ask people to be enrolled in school so they can get credits and I think they also can get paid out. Now, one of the doctors in your report said it's not clear if the peer support actually helps with PTSD, but she's going to study it. Can you tell us more about that? Sure. So dr Jane said that they would have to do randomized controlled trials and they like to do it in multiple sites to make sure that there's a standard. Right. But a peer support hasn't gone through that rigorous research yet. But she says it's going on right now. And so she says it will probably take a couple of years for the results to come to the forefront. Speaker 2: 07:39 And why is it that veterans want to become peer support specialists? Sure. For some of them I think it's the duty of helping others. I think, you know, when you're in the military it's service and I think for them, you know, this is another way to help somebody and especially help somebody that they had a connection with shared experiences. And it just, you know, I think it makes them feel good helping another person, you know, and elevates their hope and it helps them, it makes them feel good too. It helps them definitely as well, like a sense of structure and you know, just positive reinforcement. I've been speaking with reporter Alyssa, John Perry, Alyssa, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Speaker 5: 08:31 [inaudible].
