This NYHealth-funded Rochester Veterans Outreach Center report provides a blueprint to provide communities with a replicable and scalable best-practice model for serving veterans and their families. With nearly 40 years of service under its belt, Veterans Outreach Center has grown to become a national leader of community-based supportive services.
With more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and nearly that many years of combat in Iraq, the nation finds itself worn and tired of the wars’ physical and economic toll and projected aftermath. More than 46,500 returning service members have suffered physical wounds and injuries, and thousands more await diagnosis of wounds of a more invisible nature, namely post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The lives of more than 6,250 families have been forever altered through the loss of their loved ones. Their ranks – and the ranks of surviving veterans – continue to grow as these wars roll forward and another generation joins the thousands of veteran families before them who, more often than not, look to their community for help in sorting out their futures.