Episode 121 Transcription

Welcome to episode 121 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with PsychArmor’s trusted partners and educational experts. My name is Duane France in each week. I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, veterans, and their families. You can find the show on all the podcast players or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast. 

Thanks again for joining us in behind the mission. Our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors who also believe that education changes lives. Our sponsor this week is PsychArmor the premier education and learning ecosystem. Specializing in military culture content. Psychomotor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. 

On today's episode, I'm featuring a conversation with army veteran, Jim Zenner, director of the Los Angeles county department of military and veterans affairs. A licensed clinical social worker, Jim previously held positions with the LA county department of mental health department of veterans affairs, volunteers of America, the Stephen A Cohen military family clinic at the university of Southern California. It is a consultant for vets advocacy incorporated. You can find out more about Jim by checking out his bio in our show notes. Let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some of the key points.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: . Jim, it's great to have you on the show to talk about your work and the Los Angeles County Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. Before we get into that, however, I'd like to provide you with the opportunity to share a bit about your background and why this work is important to you.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah. Yeah. Good to be here. Duane. it was a interesting road to get here. I was managing restaurants when, 9/11 had happened, but, after Iraq, I remember watching the news and I remember just going up to my dad, who's a Vietnam vet, and I asked him about, what do you think about me joining the military when I was 18?

And he said, absolutely not. So I just felt with the war breaking out and then,I told my dad, if they mentioned a draft, I just, I feel like I have to. I have to join. I don't have an education. For my two kids that I had at the time, at the age of 26, I was like, I'm gonna go get an education so I can get a job where I'm actually around them.

A lot more restaurant management, you're always gone. And then, the selfish side was, I'm gonna go do my part in Iraq. He did his time in Vietnam. My grandfather did his time in Guda Canal, where one of those, families, here in America, that just serve every, every war except for Korea. We didn't have anybody in the Korean War. all the way back to the Revolutionary War. So it just, part of me just felt called. I just had to do, do my part. and then part of it, I just wanted a better life for my kids and I went in and I really didn't know what I wanted to do, just to get a degree.

Midway through, I was thinking law enforcement, as I was knocking out my lower divs and then, being deployed Iraq, it was just like the, it just hit me like I would be doing, not this type of stuff, but close to this type of stuff in my own neighborhood where I'm seeing the worst of humanity.

You see the worst of humanity day in and day out. You get, I don't care who you are, your brain starts getting, you start seeing the world through a lens that's more dehumanized. Having two kids, I just, I didn't want that. And then I thought back to like my upbringing and, you know, watching my dad go get help when he was really struggling and how my family almost broke apart because of his untreated post-traumatic stress. They didn't catch up to him until 19 years after the war. And was triggered by a lot of occupational stress.

And, I just remember him going to the VA for three months getting his help, him and my mom going and getting their marriage therapy and that's kept the family together. And I was like, all right. I like psychology in high school cuz you know, I, you get to mess with people's brains.

That was my thought of psychology. And, so I liked those classes and I liked the fact that, I could help other veterans, I could help other people. And so decided to go, in that realm. Finished my bachelor's in psychology during my four year enlistment in the Army. I had one deployment from oh six to oh seven.

Got out, transitioned to the reserves, and then I, my wife maybe promised her that I'd move her back to LA so she could finish her degree at U C L A. And of course, I applied for U S C. Being the biggest rival, of my wife's school and, got into the master of Social Work program there. Yeah, you know, when I got to la you're surrounded by 10, 11 million people, but you, I felt alone and it was kind of weird.

It was like, man, I'm surrounded. I can't walk without tripping over people, but I just feel all by myself. I don't have any veteran friends down here. I don't have no family in la. My wife had a sister that lived in la but that was the extent of our family. Her and I weren't getting along too well. And man, I just, those were the days that I felt the loneliness and I grew up on the side of a mountain, so I've seen some lonely days.

But, just the thought process of, like I'm around all these people, but I don't feel like I can connect to a single person, besides a, military spouse, Marine Corps spouse, that was going through the MSW program with me, and she was like my, person I could go to and talk to and all that stuff.

But, yeah, so life hit me pretty hard. Slept in my car, slept in a hotel for weeks. Got into a VA homeless program while I was finishing up my degree. Got a lot of mental health help. I didn't have a super tough deployment, but, when I got back from Iraq, my dad passed away unexpectedly.

And he was my guide. I would ask him like, hey dad, is it normal to not feel anything? I'm sitting in front of the Christmas tree, watching my kids open presents. I don't feel a damn thing. I feel no happiness, no joy, no excitement, no. And he is like, yeah, son, it's just gonna take a little time to wear off it, that's the process. And so when he passed away unexpectedly, right before we moved down to la, just things started coming off the rails. And then with the transition down there, feeling all alone, like it was, I, if it wasn't for the VA and the help that I got from the va, I dunno if I would've made it through school, to be honest with you.

Fast forward, get my degree in the organization that actually put me up in a homeless program, offered me a job right outta school to help, 48 Iraq, Afghanistan vets who were homeless. So literally 48 veterans who were in the same boat I was in six months prior. Here I am helping them.

So I'm like, oh my God. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like I manage restaurants. I know how to motivate like low paid workers. Speaking of managing low paid workers, as a sergeant in the army, you have to manage 'em low paid workers as well. You just, I learned. 50% of what I know in leadership, just watching the good NCOs in the military, watching the bad NCOs and realizing that's not what I wanna be.

But the majority, my unit was really a lot of great standup guys. And so I, I was able to learn a lot around leadership. My schooling combined with my two, leadership experience opportunities in my life up to that point. I just, I really just listened to the veterans, to be honest. Like I wasn't, I'm not smart.

I did pass the, as. Barely. But I just listened to the veterans. They were like, look, every time I go to the va, they want me to quit my job. They want me to quit school. Like I just wanna make progress. And I was like, that makes sense to me. For me, the biggest thing that was helping me is I knew my mission was to wake up and get my butt to school and turn in my papers and, complete the mission.

And so it, it made a lot of sense. So I just took a risk and said, look, you guys don't have to quit school. You guys don't have to quit, work. Like you guys just keep working. But you do have to like, pull your weight around the house and you do have to attend year treatment at the VA or wherever you're getting help at.

But,we'll bend the rules on that. And so just a bunch of accommodations like that and just created this, facility that was in the middle of Hollywood, California that was just, it was four vets by Vets man. And it was just, a lot of the guys described it as being bar back in the barracks.

And the only thing I really emphasize with them is progress. Just make progress in your life. we're here to support you. Our doors are always open. You can walk in anytime. I'm gonna go out and find you some gym equipment on the side so you guys can go out there and pump some iron and, all that kind of stuff.

But, Just keep making progress in your life. So I had a lot of time with the, a lot of fun with that program. And so I just, a couple other places. I worked at the VA for a little bit, worked at USC for a little bit, starting a mental health program there. And then, joined county in, 2018, was with the Department of Mental Health.

I started the veteran peer access network, which is 80 p across LA County, just connectingno barriers. We're not asking for a DD two 14 or a dna sample or anything like that. You say you're a veteran will help you. and whether it's getting connected to the va, getting connected to a benefits rep, whatever it is.

But the big, the important piece is just that veteran to veteran kind of conversations I have and, getting those walls to come down. The stigma to go away enough to ask for what you need. Fast forward a little bit more. I've got appointed as the director of, military Veteran Affairs here in LA County back in August. And,been doing it ever since. 

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: You know, it's amazing how many times we listened to these individual stories, and each individual's story is unique. And then there's also lots of similarities, like you, my dad was a Vietnam veteran, And this was ;ittle bit before this in the early nineties,we didn't have conflicts.

Good. But I went to him and I said, Hey, I'm gonna join the military. He said, absolutely not. Thankfully I didn't listen to him. or we had some negotiations going on. I lived in his basement for about a year while I was in the reserves, and then we were both like, yeah, it's probably better for me to pop smoke. But even your idea about law enforcement, he left Vietnam and he became a St. Louis city cop in the seventies. You don't know where exactly what you were talking about where P T S D from one ended and the other began. And like you, I was an Iraq when I had that epiphany of I can't be my father's therapist.

But definitely these troops these days are gonna need some mental health professionals, that understand them, that have the experience that have. Not just the deployment experience, but the lived military experience. and it sounds like you've really been able to leverage that into, like you said, that veteran to veteran connection.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah, a hundred percent.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: And so Los Angeles County, I'm in Colorado, right? very populous community in Colorado, but nowhere near, Los Angeles County. Huge population that comes with a large veteran population. Over 250,000 veterans call Los Angeles County home. Not only that, with a county that's spread out over 4,000 square miles, over 80, incorporated cities and towns, that makes your department comparable to the departments of military and Veterans Affairs of many states.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah. Yeah. We, we, our county has a 44 billion budget with a b. We're a very large, we're, we are the largest, county in the entire country. at least budgetarily, like you mentioned. I mean, the, over 4,000 square miles we're actually closer to 5,000 square miles, and it's getting from one end of LA to the other, it could be like three and a half, four and a half hours, like a, one of our convoys down to M S R Tampa or something.

It's a long commute and the challenges is like, yeah, we have a lot of resources, but we gotta cover a lot of ground. If we're not out in the different communities, like veterans won't come out and get the help. And we're seeing that with the homelessness issue out here.

We're not able to push the veteran specific services out to all the communities, so we got homeless veterans that are in the cities that can't make it to a VA hospital because it's halfway across the county. And we're just, as a county, we're, we just haven't got into all of our cities yet.

We're working on it. and that's a big push. On the benefits side, and that's primarily what our department does, we're the, on the county VSO for LA County, I have about 17, accredited reps through the that worked for me. We administer, service, connection, disability, all the state benefits.

We got, a, tuition waiver for dependence, for in-state tuition. So that's usually a really popular one. The job's big and there's a lot of resources. there's just a lot of resources in LA County. And the problem is they're not coordinated. And that's what I spend most of my time trying to focus on is like, Hey, you're doing this over here.

You're doing that over. You say you do 11 things, but my veterans are saying you only do three of the 11 things that you say you're doing. It's just constantly trying to like, navigate the maze. And I just think about like our service members that transition out with their families and it's everything.

You know how it is, everything's coordinated on the base for you. Like it's, it's made very simple for you. And then you get to a place like LA County and it's man, you're reading a back azimuth and, it's changing while you're looking at it, It doesn't make sense.

And that's really why a lot of my career has been focused on creating programs like the Veteran Parent Access Network, where people can get a person that's been through it, a person that can talk to you in a way where your guard will come down because they get where you're coming from and they actually think it's amusing to see you getting fired up. cuz we're comfortable with that, right? we're comfortable like what's aggressive in the civilian world is assertive in the military.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: Or, or pretty much normal. and that idea about transition, you have one active duty military, there's an Air Force base in LA County, but the majority of the veterans who are coming into LA County are either returning home, which has its own issues, right? You leave home, join the military for reason.

They're either coming home or like you, they're coming to Los Angeles without a lot of support and things like that. And so it may sound like over 250,000 veterans, but that's in a community of 10 million people. That's, that's a drop in the bucket. that's one veteran, per thousand people.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah, that's a great point. That's another challenge, transitioning into LA County is the percentage of veterans is low compared to the civilian. You look at the state of California and I think 4% of our entire population are veterans. And then you look at states like North Carolina, it's 10, 11%.

You just, people understand you better when you're, you're transitioning into a place that has more veterans in it and more military. To your point, LA Air Force base really small doesn't have a huge impact on la versus a big base like, Fort Hood or Fort Drum or something like that, Fort Lewis, where it's so big, there's so many people that report to that base and so many civilians that work at that base that it's really a big, big part of the community.

So yeah, that's a, great point. Yeah. You go down to San Diego and it's completely different, right? They got like the biggest Marine Corps base and one of the biggest naval bases down there, and it's much more of military town, versus LA County where it's not so much.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: And it's really dispersed. And you talk about the number of resources. I can only imagine the number of nonprofits that it, or just organizations, educational organizations, governmental organizations that say they do something to help veterans. but it's really that idea of, you probably have, on one hand, I don't know, a thousand more organizations within the county who say I do stuff for veterans.And then you have these veterans over here that are saying, we aren't getting our needs met. That's a huge gap.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. And that's really, we have, something called the LA Veteran Collaborative. Which is a partnership with a philanthropic foundation that convenes other foundations.

One of their funders group is a veterans funders group. hearing from the community, they didn't want government to lead the collaborative, which, I can't blame 'em. We do things slower, in, in more, uh, more red tape. So we, we look to them because who comes to the LA Veteran Collaborative is a lot of these small nonprofits that do great work. They put their heart and soul in it. It's like a husband wife combo or it's like a, a widow of a veteran or, it's just people that their heart's in it, they just don't know how to build out, their program or, some of them don't wanna build out their program, but I wanted to get them, connected with, philanthropy so that they could learn what are foundations looking for?

Because you're not gonna come to me in the government, even though I'm county and get a grant right out the bat. Like you gotta do some kind of proof of concept. You gotta get some grant funding from a foundation, prove your, proof of concept, build a reputation of taking care of veterans and their families.

And then, then, that's when government looks to start funding stuff. And part of that group is called the access and engagement. So we brought in the most dedicated peer support specialist that whose job is to help veterans and their families navigate the system, whether they work in the va, whether they work in county, whether they work in the community as a contractor for the va.

We get them together and we get, we talk about barriers, we talk about what's not working out there. We invite elected officials to the meeting to hear it directly from the ground. So they can get legislative ideas of how they can fix stuff. People who are responsible for funding so they can hear where they need to prioritize their funding, and really try to bring that to light, because that's one thing that I just can't sleep.

I can't sleep when there's not accountability. I can't sleep when I got my peers calling me, or my veteran reps calling me at eight, nine o'clock. I can't get anybody in, they're gonna be on the street tonight if I don't get 'em in. And they're just, it's tearing them. Because they can't take care of their veteran and, yeah system with no accountability. I just can't, I can't thrive in, I won't rest until there's some kind of accountability to where, people are doing great work. Get recognized, get funded, and the ones that are out there just collecting a paycheck and not helping my fellow vets, I'm gonna make you famous. It's to, to your job. Or go do something else. Go, go work with, I don't know, another population, but not my buddies.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: Yeah, and I think that's really one of the challenges that a lot of communities are having on different scales, obviously not the scale,that even places like you or like the New York Department of Veterans Services are having, just the, there's no way you could do it by yourself.

So really you're more of a convener, a collaborator, a network, not a network manager, but really like a network collaborator to be able to ensure that these organizations are connected. 

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah. Yeah. And the other end of that is really like a big thing that I really appreciate about having this position is really like bringing the county resources to the veteran community. Because that's the, that was a major barrier for veterans in LA County for a while, is we got these programs that, in, in our, animal care and control department where a homeless veteran that has a dog that will not get off the street unless that the dog can come with them more or less, that the dog will be safe.

We can get them placed at the shelter while the veterans in transitional housing working to get his permanent housing or her permanent housing. So we didn't know about that. And so I really like connecting with my other department heads and the other 39, departments in the county to, to learn about this stuff and plug it in to fill the gaps that I'm hearing in that access and engagement meeting at LAVC.

So that's another piece where, you know, US veterans that can get in the county system, we can leverage other county departments to really take care of vets. And that's something that I found early on my first seven months here is I have that opportunity to really plug the county more into the veteran community, not just the veteran community get plugged into the county.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: And that idea of that public-private governmental partnership. Know this, multi organizational collaborative. And you've talked some about obviously the role, the traditional role that many people think of veteran service officers, which is to help, veterans with their benefits and some other things. Given the unique nature in numbers and types of veterans that your office serves, what are some of the other programs that you provide to veterans in la?

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah, so we, besides the veteran service reps, we also have, I'm joining you from Bob Hope Patriotic call, which is just this beautiful building, historical building. It was built in 1925 on the backs of World War I veterans and Spanish American War veterans. It was retrofitted back in, in reopened back in 2013.

And we just try to host all sorts of events here. Like we, one of the county's priorities is to reduce social isolation. And two target populations are older adults, and, veterans and their families. And so we just try to do a bunch of different events, focusing on different groups.

Like we just had a welcome home event for our Vietnam vets. We do a lot of women vet,events. We did a, African American history, event, where we brought in, original Montford point Marines, to talk about their stories of going through, the basic training.

That they built with their own hands. They literally built their own for that. They, went through basic with. So we just try to engage the community and as many populations as possible to make this place feel like home. I run into Vietnam vets that used to come here with their World War II veteran dads and grew up in this building.

And when they start talking it's it sounds like a family home. Like where everybody was welcome. I was like, man, dude, that's where I need to get this building again. We need to get this place like just feeling like a home. We got 400 seat theater, like we're working on fixing the movie screen so we can do family movie nights, stuff like that.

But we're just, that's another big project that we're working on. and a lot of the other projects I'm not funded for, but it's, but I'm working with Department of Aging to reach out with the VA and expand our older veteran, program. Because there's this program called Veteran Directed Care that's coming down from VA central office.

And so it, comes from central office, goes down to the division and then it comes down to the medical centers. And so we learned about it. We wanted to get out front, we wanted to bring, our, because Greater La Va medical Center covers like seven different counties. And so my partner at Aging and Disability Department.

She's able to Bring all the different county departments to the meeting. And then I'm bringing all our, county departments of Veteran Affairs to the meeting. And then there's the GLA VA Medical Center, and then there's a Long Beach VA Medical Center.

Those two cover the, you know, 7% of LA County. And so we're creating this big collaborative to really talk through and help them implement the veteran directed care, which is really a program aimed to keep in our older veteran adults in their homes and making sure that them and their caregivers have what they need through a flexible pool of money.

That gets disseminated to take care of the caregiver. If he or she needs respite care, they can, hire somebody to come in, take care of the veteran while they take a break,install guardrails in their bathrooms or, just whatever the veteran needs to stay in their home.

This program helps. And most of us, especially veterans, we, we don't wanna be told, oh, you can't live here anymore. You're not, so it's what veterans want, And so I, I do a lot of. working with Department of Human Resources on, expanding our eligibility.

So right now we define veteran as somebody who honorably got discharged from the, military. And we wanna open that up and explore can we include general under honorable? can we include reservists and national guards, men and women? we wanna hire more of them.

It's my role, I get to do these really cool high level projects to really expand, our touchpoints with the military and veteran population here in LA County. But what I get funded to do is the veteran service rep and then of course run this awesome building in downtown la.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: Well, you also mentioned before we started talking that one of the things that you feel like you've really,taken lead on is addressing suicide in the military and veteran population there in LA County.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah. Yeah. So I, when I was at the Department of Mental Health, we, we started off with a, there's this thing called the mayor's challenge. VA and SAMSA got together. They implemented this thing. So LA was one of seven cities first selected. I was still at the va. And I, and the lady that runs it, she reached out to me from the VA and said, Hey, I really want you to be on this.

We're looking for somebody who's an expert in Pierce. And so I signed up and, was involved closer to the beginning, but it's really was this collective of some really influential people, not big titles, fancy titles, just people that wanted to grind it out. And we did a bunch of stuff through that task force, we did, change legislation to where veterans could, surrender their guns to their friends and not have it be, kept by the police department, ran through, do doj, six months before you get your gun back, all that stuff. So it was easier for vets to surrender their guns if they wanted to, if they were feeling suicidal.

And part of it, and I didn't think I was, we were gonna make this happen, but we made it happen somehow, is we got some county level legislation to establish what's called the Veteran Suicide Review Team. And so really how that, it's a, it's like a suicide fatality review process. There's a lot of 'em out there.

A handful of 'em specific to veterans. This is the first one for the state of California. But basically how it works is we take the, all the suicide decedents that get identified by our medical examiner Coron office, that data gets shared with the va. VA takes a first stab at identifying veteran status or not.

So they go through all the data, And the ones that are veterans, my department gets that chunk. And then we do the last step of the verification because we have access to the benefit side. When I say va, it's the healthcare side, so they use different, data platforms to do this.

And so once we have all the veterans that are identified, we reach out to the next akin. And we send a letter about what the veteran suicide review team is about, what we're trying to achieve. And what it really is, is a collection of about 14, 16 county departments. the vision, the VA Vision 22.

There are three medical centers that cover this, their suicide prevention programs, CalVet, who's our State Department, Veteran Affairs, the F B I social media, forensic task is on there. And what we do is we request permission from the next kin to share, the decedent's data. About 40% of the time they say yes.

In other localities, we're about to get this off the ground. So we don't know exactly, what our percentage will be, only a smaller chunk of folks will actually sign onto it. But once we have that, that data, we send it out to all the different county departments,to do a review of the records to see if that person interface with that department. So we're looking at sheriffs, we're looking at the va, we're looking at animal care control. All these different departments are looking to see if this person ever received services or had an interaction with the department. And then just fill out this real simple form.

Long story short, what we're looking for is trent. So in another part of the country, they found that people were given their animals away to the local animal care control before they took their own lives. And so what that does for us as government is we can focus our resources where these veterans are, going to before they take their own lives.

We're also looking at like where they connected to VA healthcare. if yes, were they connected to mental healthcare with the va? if not, were they connected to county, medical and county mental? like I was saying earlier, did they interact with law enforcement at any point?

Were they having, justice problems? And so all that kind of data really, it's not to collect people's data and all that stuff for the sake of collecting data, it's to look at trends like how do we learn from this and how do we target our limited resources or coordinate our massive amount of resources to really get out in front of suicide. And so I'm really excited about that project. it, it's gonna save lives.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: Yeah, Absolutely. I, hear you. I, and I definitely believe in that type of programming, it's really the kind of thing that's gonna help people, think outside the box a little bit. That in, in many of the other things that you're doing are amazing. They're in LA County. If folks wanted to reach out to you, either they're outside of LA County and they want to figure out how you manage such a complicated, network of organizations, or if there are veterans within LA County that are hearing this, how can they find out more about what you.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: Yeah, so first off, if any veteran family member, reservist is in la you need anything, you can call this number, and you'll get another veteran or a family member on the other end of the line that'll just, hear you. I'll get you connected wherever you need to get connected to that now.

Number is one 800-854- 7 771. There's a little bit of a recording at the front end, but you just have to stick with it. And then you press three and then you'll get bpa, the, the lawyers got involved. yeah. and, and if you're not, if you're not in la or if you're in LA you just want to connect with me and get more information about what we're doing in LA County and get plugged in, you can reach me at, Jay Zenner, Z E N N E R.

MVA Military veteran affairs mva la county.gov. And you can also look us up on our website. It's mva la county.gov. and you'll see our website. Also our contact information's on there as well. but. I also have a pretty active LinkedIn. If you're on LinkedIn, you can look me up on LinkedIn, Jim Zenner, it's open, connect there.I try to post a lot of what we're doing and push a lot of resources out through there. you'll get a lot of, content from me if you connect with me on there.

audioDuaneFrance,MA,M21306805344: That's great, and I'll make sure that all of those are in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

audioJimZennerLACount11306805344: You bet, Duane. Good to be here.

Once again, we'd like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor, is the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. 

As you can tell Jim and I had a lot to chat about and could have gone for a long time about the great work that's being done in Los Angeles County. There are a lot of reflections that I could've made about our conversation, not least of which is the sheer size of the community. It would rank 11th in population among the 50 states is geographically larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware, and has a larger economic gross domestic product than all but California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois. 

But the point that I'd like to make is Jim's clear description of how isolated he felt in a community of over 10 million people. Not only did he not know anyone when he moved to LA outside of a sister-in-law, But likely the people he did come in contact with had little familiarity with the military and veteran population. And research shows that the more isolated veterans are either by choice or by circumstances, the harder it can be to transition from military to post-military life and the greater risk they are for challenges related to that transition, emotional dysregulation stress, lack of meaning of purpose, difficulty in getting their needs met and relationships. 

Isolation in the sense of burdensomeness to those closest to you are two key factors and Dr. Thomas Joiner's interpersonal theory of suicide. So the feeling of being alone in a crowded room is a very real experience for many veterans. 

They're isolated because they don't understand others and feel misunderstood by them. Are hesitant to ask for support and advice from those that they don't trust and find it hard to trust because of common misunderstanding. 

To overcome this isolation, it takes deliberate effort. not just on the part of the veterans or the VA, which is doing its best to support veterans, but also on the part of the community, in which the veteran resides, which is where Jim and the LA county department of military and veterans affairs comes in. 

For such a large geographic area and a historically difficult population to engage such as the veteran community, Jim and his team are doing great work to make a difference to reduce that isolation. So I hope you appreciated my conversation with Jim.

For this week’s, PsychArmor Resource of the Week, I'd like to share the Behind The Mission podcast, episode number 10, Featuring army national guard, chaplain and licensed clinical social worker, Nathan Graeser highlighting LA county's efforts to develop community collaboration for veterans support. In this episode, you can hear more about the veteran peer access network and the work that the county is doing to collaborate, to support its military affiliated population. You can find the link to the resource in our show notes.