BTM79 - Dr. Elisa Borah - Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness
Show Summary
On this episode of Behind The Mission, we're featuring a conversation with research scientist and military spouse Dr. Elisa V. Borah, research associate professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin, and Director of the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness.
About Today’s Guest
Elisa V. Borah, MSW, PhD is a research associate professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and Director of the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness, a joint initiative of the Dell Medical School Department of Health Social Work and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work.
Dr. Borah conducts research to identify, implement, and evaluate treatments, programming and community supports for military members, veterans, spouses and their families. Current research efforts include assessing the value of structured peer support for military spouses to improve their quality of life, access resources and increase social support. She also studies self-care practices among military spouses and how best to support their transition needs after military life. Dr. Borah’s current research includes development of methods to engage concerned significant others in veteran suicide prevention practices and research as well as delivery of education and training to community-based organizations in suicide prevention. Dr. Borah founded and directs the Veteran Spouse Network (VSN), originally launched through an Engagement Award from the Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI). The VSN is designed to build and support communities of Veteran spouses and to provide peer support programming with trained peers. Dr. Borah chairs the Military Social Work & Behavioral Health Conference at The University of Texas at Austin. She previously served as director of research at the Ft. Hood site of the STRONG STAR PTSD Research Consortium, a Department of Defense-funded research consortium at UT Health San Antonio.
PsychArmor Resource of the Week
The PsychArmor Resource of the Week is the PsychArmor course Making Connections and Networking. This is one of the things that Dr. Borah and her group are doing, establishing connections between military and veteran spouses. Regardless of your military background or previous work experience, this course can help service members, Veterans, and their families learn how to network in their new communities.
You can find a link to the resource here: https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/Making-Connections-and-Networking
Theme Music
Our theme music Don’t Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.
This Episode Sponsored By:
This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory with custom training options for organizations.
Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families. You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com
