Caban Q&A: barriers to mental health care and cultural competency

Thank you, Chair.

I'll also be brief so we can pass it over to colleagues.

Okay.

So one thing that we've both addressed or brought up during our opening statements, sort of that there still exists some barriers to seeking and receiving care.

So I think I'm going to start with a line of questioning there.

You know, veterans in the state continue to experience significant unmet mental health and substance use treatment needs.

And that is despite the high rates of health insurance coverage and access to VA benefits.

So like the coverage is there, the options are there, but there's a gap in treatment.

And that's due to challenges, right?

It's difficulty navigating the behavioral health system, understanding available benefits, negative stigma towards treatment, geographic and logistical barriers, increased need for

equity and cross-cultural competency training to better address the needs of women, of queer folks, veterans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

So what are some of the major barriers?

that kind of rise to the top when you're trying to assess health care coverage for mental and behavioral health services?

I'm going to be passing this question on to my chief of staff, but before that,

At DVS, we have different ways on how veterans can connect with us, whether it is through our social media platform, whether it is through our website, whether it is through our walkings or even VetConnect.

We understand that veterans like to be communicated, reached out.

Everyone has a specific way how they would like to be reached out.

So at DVS, what we are noticing is that, and we are aware, is that

if we are culturally competent, if a veteran doesn't, culturally military competent, if a veteran doesn't feel comfortable in the initiation to say, I am going through this or I'm suffering through this,

they may not want to disclose that.

But because at DVS, our team is military culturally competent, eventually, because we create that safe space for the veteran, they end up disclosing

certain aspects of what they may be going through, whether it is mentally or physically.

And I'll pass on this question now.

Can I interject with just a follow-up for that before you continue?

So in terms of military culturally competent, how many of those volunteers are peers?

Like what's the ratio between just sort of a volunteer that's been trained in competency versus a peer volunteer?

When you say volunteer, you mean in our agency that the staff?

Or the folks that are picking up the phones and assisting veterans when they call in.

I'm going to pass this question on to my chief of staff.

Sorry, I added a question in there on top of the initial question.

Thank you for the question.

So one-third of our staff are veterans.

More than two-thirds are military affiliated, whether that be have a family member, be a spouse, be a Gold Star family member.

And all of our staff are military culturally competent and trained in that way, as well as up to date in their units on that training.

So what I mean by that is our claims team often goes to training that reinforces that, our housing team as well, and then also our social services department also.

And then in following up to the additional question about barriers to entry, what we would say is that since we don't only just serve the veteran population, we also serve veterans and their families as well.

So oftentimes a big barrier is eligibility criteria for family members because they cannot access VA services.

And I'll also pass over to Donnie.

Okay.

I'm sorry, I'm Donnie Smalls, Associate Commissioner for Housing and Supportive Services.

We also have a model called Aftercare, where now we are, for housing, we use the Aftercare model.

We are now branching over to mental health to shadow that Aftercare model.

For mental health so that we can follow up with veterans that are, you know, going through mental health crisis, that we can follow up with them 24 hours,

two days, four days, a week after to make sure that, you know, they're seeking service and they got the services that they needed.

And just to add on what Associate Commissioner mentioned, the model now that we are implementing is mirroring per se the housing, the aftercare housing component.

Not just are we doing it within the mental health component, but across all services within the agency.

Okay.