The House Committee on Defense & Veterans’ Affairs interim report to the 88th Legislature covers participation of the Texas State Guard and Texas National Guard in Operation Lone Star, mental health for veterans as they return to civilian life. For more information see the full report here.
Spotlight on Recommendations
TOPIC I: MONITOR THE ACTIVITIES OF THE TEXAS STATE GUARD AND THE TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD PARTICIPATING IN OPERATION LONE STAR
- Provide clarity and reform benefits for Texas Guardsmen on State Active Duty missions (under Operation Lone Star as well as future deployments);
- Continue working with TMD and DPS to improve outcomes for the OLS mission.
TOPIC II: IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES FOR VETERANS AND SERVICE MEMBERS AS THEY RETURN TO CIVILIAN LIFE
HEALTH
- Increase access to mental health services that are military culturally competent and informed.
- Promote the development of supervised learning opportunities with Service Members, Veterans, and Family Members (SMVF) through internships, externships, practicum rotations, and postdoctoral fellowships.
- Enhance strategies to address the needs of family members of veterans and service members to include specific emphasis on spouses, children, and caregivers.
- Promote efforts aimed at early screening of prior military service (e.g., Ask the Question “Did You Serve?” Campaign, etc.); especially those that ask about military service over “veteran” status to enhance service connection.
- Encourage/require all Texas healthcare providers, including physicians, nursing staff, and licensed mental health professionals to receive suicide prevention and intervention training to attain licensure and as part of their continuing education and licensure renewal requirements.
- Encourage/require state agencies and state grantees who directly work with SMVF to take advantage of free training in suicide gatekeeping and military cultural competency offered by the Texas Veterans Commission, the VA, and others.
- Encourage/require all state agencies serving veterans to develop internal suicide prevention/intervention plans.
- Promote local multidisciplinary collaborative strategies including those implemented by the Mayor’s Challenges to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and their Families in Austin and Houston.
- Encourage/require higher education entities (i.e., state colleges and universities) that offer degrees in mental health related fields to include suicide prevention and intervention in their curriculum.
- Promote partnerships between state/local government and community partners through supporting the building and strengthening of multidisciplinary local veteran serving coalitions leveraging local providers and volunteers (e.g., Texas Suicide Prevention Collaborative local coalitions, Military Veteran Peer Network, etc.).
- Promote/encourage state standardization in methodology related to defining and determining cause of death, data collection/sharing, and reporting deaths by suicide among all medical examiners, coroners, and justice of the peace.
JUSTICE
- Encourage opportunities for professionals to receive training tailored to addressing veteran mental health needs in the criminal justice arena including military cultural competency, crisis intervention training, reentry planning, etc.
- Encourage that Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) 4067, Trauma Affected Veterans, become a requirement for all law enforcement officers to create a safer environment for both veterans and law enforcement in Texas.
- Encourage efforts including those by TVC’s Justice Involved Veteran Program to support the Veteran Treatment Courts across Texas through technical assistance and training opportunities for all court personnel attuned to the unique needs of justice involved veterans and best practices.
- Develop strategies to expand the use of peer support in Veteran Treatment Courts as an effective component to strengthen efforts to reduce recidivism and promote recovery.
- Support efforts to increase access to veteran peer support within jails and prisons across Texas by increasing the number of veteran pods. These efforts could strengthen successful community reentry efforts and aid in reducing recidivism.
- Texas should add a standard definition of recidivism in the Veterans Treatment Court Statute. The Texas Judicial Council should direct the Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) to develop guidelines to establish a uniform recidivism rate definition for veteran’s treatment courts for adoption by the Council; and, require OCA to compile the recidivism data for a 10- year period.
- Provide funding for pro bono programs specifically targeted towards assisting veterans in child support cases. With appropriate training and mentoring, pro bono attorneys could help bridge this justice gap.
MENTAL HEALTH
- Support strategies to promote and enhance the Military Veteran Peer Network, including ways to expand the presence of TVC-Certified Peer Service Coordinators to better serve SMVF in their local communities. The need for more Peer Service Coordination is particularly relevant in rural and frontier parts of the state.
- Encourage strategies (e.g., Faith and Allegiance Initiative, chaplaincies) that aim to leverage peer opportunities within communities of faith and congregations.
- Encourage the development and strengthening of local SMVF affinity groups across Texas, especially in rural areas with limited access to VAs and few community resources.
- To promote an effective continuum of care, encourage utilization of multidisciplinary service approach to address veteran mental health needs including physicians, mental health professionals, and trained peers.
EMPLOYMENT
- There is a need for a transferable veteran hiring preference for veterans with an unemployability rating to the veteran’s spouse.
- Providing active-duty and Title 32 military spouses with a hiring preference for state government jobs will lower the unemployment rate of military spouses and will provide sustainable income and a better quality of life for military family members.
- There is a need to increase the number of veterans hired by state agencies to accomplish the 20 percent goal, as required by the Texas Government Code, Section 657.004.
- Establish more childcare facilities for veterans with incentives.
EDUCATION
- To assist Hazlewood Act applicants, it is recommended that all Institutes of Higher Education (IHEs) inform all applicants seeking tuition exemption under the Hazlewood Act of the grievance and adjudication processes available should the exemption be denied.
- Legislature should revise Tex. Ed. Code Section 54.341 and 54.2001 utilizing clear, concise, and declarative language to explain how a veteran qualifies for the Hazlewood Act benefit, maintains eligibility, and under what conditions the benefit may be passed to a Legacy child or spouse, and under what specific conditions the benefit will be denied.
- The Legislature should appropriate funds for the Higher Education Coordinating Board to develop a database that allows veterans to upload all documents used for Hazlewood Act qualification (DD Form 214, marriage certificate, birth certificate, certificates of eligibility, etc.) into a central repository utilized by all IHEs. These documents would then be available to all IHEs for reference if the student transfers beneficiaries to a different school, changes category or qualification (Legacy to child with own hours) and streamlines the application process for both and IHE administrative staff (saving time and money for the IHE). The database should meet all security, DIR and FERPA standards.
- State agencies and public institutions of higher learning that provide services to veterans should make readily available in an easily accessible format childcare information and options to veterans and their families.
HOUSING
- Modify Texas Tax Code 11.22 (b) to be indexed for inflation (this has not been done since 2001).
- Several communities nationwide have reutilized surplus government property and buildings to permanently house Veterans and low-income families with great success. Texas is fortunate to have similar untapped resources and facilities to meet this growing need now, and in the foreseeable future. It is recommended to focus on reutilizing surplus government property and buildings to permanently house Veterans and low-income families