Lee Q&A with Kapner: peer support in Veterans Court

Councilmember Lee.

And it's lovely to see the former chair and current chair.

Two favorite people.

I was just going to, oh, that's a perfect segue, because I was going to say, it always makes me happy coming and seeing Councilmember Cabon, Chair Cabon, sorry, who's now chairing up the Mental Health Committee.

And, of course, we have our amazing chair, Frank Morano, who's here as well.

But he's like, anyway.

No, so, and, of course, Fiona, thank you so much for your work, because you and I have talked a lot about the suicide prevention.

And then just for David, I have a quick question, because when we first joined the council back in 2022,

I think it was actually that first year when we were in office where myself and then former chair Bob Holden for Veterans Committee held a joint hearing specifically on the Veterans Treatment Courts.

And that hadn't been done, I think, at that time.

It hadn't been looked at since 2015.

And I remember there was a lot of interesting things to look at there in terms of the intersectionality there with mental health and the criminal justice system.

And one of the things that came from that was the lack of number of peers that were available to help those veterans to try to get them.

Because obviously having that experience goes a long way when you're trying to get someone to maybe apply for benefits or do something else in that area.

So I just wanted to know what the...

numbers for the peer support looks like now?

Because that's something that we actually, so through the peer support initiative, which Councilmember Caban, I know, was very involved in initiating a couple years ago,

that was one of the things that I was wondering if that area is being served at all and if that could be amped up at all.

I can't give you an exact answer.

I wish I could.

My experience is I go to court, and it's a core group of two, three, or four peers that I almost always see.

And then there are people that come that are either learning or have some time but not a lot of time.

The people I see are mostly, they appear to be retired.

They sit in court all day.

So I don't, the short answer is I don't know, but my personal experience is that they exist and they make a big difference.

Yeah, I think at the time there was one.

We should get some paid peers though.

That's what I'm saying.

So there was one, and I guess I'm just, that you're exactly getting to my question, which is if there was more of a formalized way to get folks into the pipeline, would that or could that help?

I expect it would help very much.