BTM133 - Lindsay Church - Minority Vets of America
Show Summary
On this episode, we’re featuring a conversation Navy Veteran Lindsay Church, who goes by they/them pronouns, is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Minority Veterans of America, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to creating an equitable and just world for the minority veteran community including veterans of color, women, LGBTQ+, and (non) religious minority veterans.
About Today’s Guest
Lindsay Church (they/them) is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Minority Veterans of America, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to creating an equitable and just world for the minority veteran community including veterans of color, women, LGBTQ+, and (non) religious minority veterans. Lindsay has over a decade of experience rooted in military and veteran advocacy and grassroots organizing and has worked among numerous coalitions to usher in transformational policy changes and reforms. They have facilitated agency-wide cultural competency trainings and assessments to ensure organizations and governmental entities are able to serve their minority and veteran constituencies effectively, efficiently, and in a culturally informed manner.
Lindsay received their graduate degree, with a focus in international conflict and countering violent extremism, and their undergraduate degree, in Near Eastern Language and Civilization and Comparative Islamic Studies, from the University of Washington. They also hold an associate degree in Persian-Farsi from Defense Language Institute. Lindsay is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where they served as a Cryptologic Technician Interpretative.
Lindsay currently serves on the Task Force on Outdoor Recreation for Veterans, an interagency council charged with providing recommendations for public land managers and organizations to increase access to outdoor recreation for service members, veterans, and their families.
Prior to founding and leading the Minority Veterans of America, Lindsay served as the Assistant Director and co-founder of Student Veteran Life at the University of Washington. Their previous appointments include LGBTQ Commissioner for the City of Seattle, Co-Chair of Congresswoman Suzan Delbene's (WA-1) Veterans Advisory Council, steering committee member for Recreate Responsibly Coalition, and Co-Chair of the Military Advisory Council for OutServe-SLDN (now Modern Military Association of America).
PsychArmor Resource of the Week
This week’s PsychArmor resource of the week is the PsychArmor Podcast episode with Dr. Samuel Odom and First Lieutenant Marlon Dortch, where we have a conversation about cultural diversity in military social work. In this episode, Dr. Odom, who is a veteran and former Military Social Worker, and Lieutenant Dortch, who is currently serving as a Military Social Worker, join the show to talk about the role of military social workers and the importance of diversity and inclusion from a military social worker perspective. You can see find the course here: https://psycharmor.org/podcast/dr-samuel-odom-and-1lt-marlon-dortch
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
