The Vet Center at Alexian Brothers Medical Center Campus
Resource Center for Veterans and Families - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychological Counseling and Other Services Available
A resource center for Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans and their families has opened on the campus of Alexian Brothers Medical Center (ABMC) in Elk Grove Village, Ill., as Alexian Brothers Health Systems' (ABHS) efforts to address the needs of military families continue to gain momentum.
Located in ABMC's Roncoli Center, the resource center offers psychological counseling as well as practical guidance for accessing benefits and services available to veterans. The resource center is open on Thursdays, with drop-in hours between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. and appointment hours between 12 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
ABHS is partnering with the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to offer the resource center. ABHS is providing the space, at the VA department is providing a psychologist and a service officer to work with veterans and their families.
The resource center, which opened November 1, is an outgrowth of a series of symposiums sponsored by The Workforce Development Learning Institute of ABMC to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, their families and the loved ones of deceased soldiers cope with the complex emotional and practical issues that they often face.
The well attended symposiums have demonstrated to VA officials an unmet need for veterans services in Chicago's northwest suburbs, say Kathleen Prunty, who heads the Workforce Development Learning Institute and developed the symposium concept. Separately, officials at VA centers in Rockford, Ill., and Evanston, Ill, have noticed a spike in closed cases involving veterans from the northwest suburbs. VA officials suspect many of these veterans apparently sought help once at one of the centers but never returned because the trip from their homes was too long. Their cases subsequently were closed, but VA officials believe these veterans still have unmet needs - a theory that will be tested through the new resource center.
The resource center will help veterans and their families cut through red tape and to navigate "the complexities of bureaucracy," Prunty says. "Since the symposium concept was born, Alexian Brothers is seen as being on the front edge of supporting veterans and their family members. We get questions that we might now have answers to. Having a veterans center on the premises will allow us to facilitate getting those answers right here locally."
Prunty credits the Alexian Brothers, Mark Frey, Chief Executive Officer of Alexian Brothers Hospital Network (ABHN), and John Werrbach, ABMC's Chief Executive Officer, for strongly supporting The Workforce Development Learning Institute's efforts to assist military families. This support has enabled the symposium series to take root and has allowed the resource center to become reality, she says. Prunty also is grateful to ABMC employees for designating the symposium series as one of the chief beneficiaries of ABMC's Annual Employee Appeal. A symposium at the Roncoli Center, was highlighted by a session on advances in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jeffery Lewine, Ph.D., Director of ABHN's Illinois Magnetoencephalography Center , led the session, describing how leading-edge brain-mapping technology available at the center can measure the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on the brain.
Also notable was the number of veterans who attended the symposium. At the first two symposiums, veterans' family member predominated. "Now, we're getting veterans who have gone through the system and don't have the answers they want," Prunty says. "They are coming to Alexian Brothers to learn more about options for addressing their health and benefit concerns - and more about their hope for the future."
Plans call for continuing the symposium series. For more information about the symposium series or the resource center, contact Kathleen Prunty at 847-981-6557.
