With the ongoing drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and the surge in military suicides and reports of emotional distress, trained social workers well-versed in the nuances of military culture will be essential in helping vets reintegrate to civilian life. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has referred to the dramatic increase in suicides, a rate of one per day, as an epidemic.
According to Kim Kick, a Military Family Life Consultant and licensed clinical social worker who has been working with military families since 2005, “Military personnel have been immersed in a culture that strips them down, builds them back up, and tells them never to leave a soldier behind. But when they return to civilian life, many feel that they have indeed been left behind."
Kick, who heads Dominican University's new Certificate in Working with Military and their Family (CWMF), designed to train social workers to handle just such situations, is available to discuss the social and psychological issues facing returning veterans as well as needed institutional responses to the epidemic of veteran suicides.
To read more about Kick, visit http://www.dom.edu/newsroom/experts/faculty/faculty_k.html#kick.
To learn more about Dominican's CWMF program, visit http://www.dom.edu/gssw/militarycertificate.
RSS