Employment Programs for Combat Vets

¶ … Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS) program touts the fact that the organization seeks to provide meaningful and successful careers for all veterans (United States, 2015). VETS seems to be much more than just a program, however, providing a number and variety of different resources for any veteran interested in obtaining, and keeping, gainful employment. The organization's mission statement describes opportunities that will prepare the veteran for obtaining meaningful careers, maximizing employment, and protecting veteran's rights in the workforce.

The number of veterans since 2001 that have been provided information or been counseled by the VETS program has totaled "more than one million individuals through briefings or individual technical assistance" (United States, 2015). That number averages more than 75,000 veterans per year benefiting from what the program has to offer. Due to the travesties of war and combat, many of these veterans are suffering from debilitating injuries, both physical and mental in nature.

Since the early 1970's the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has offered therapeutic work programs through its compensated work therapy (CWT) efforts (Leddy, Stefanovics, Rosenheck, 2014). Many of these veterans receiving help are both homeless and destitute. VETS is there to assist these men and women in building new careers, receiving assistance and landing jobs. Larson and Norman (2014) determined that a large percentage of discharged combat veterans reported 'some' to 'extreme' difficulty in one or more areas of concern. Those areas of concern included; social functioning, self-care, and productivity.

The VETS program seeks to address those problems by focusing not only on assisting in the veteran's assimilation process, but by providing veterans with information, training and assistance. Without the assistance of programs like VETS, jobless veterans would not only have to rely on other means of support, but could also suffer needlessly, especially those veterans already suffering from various medical maladies. One recent report documents the fact that "participants obtaining competitive employment demonstrated significantly higher scores on the Social Integration, Mobility, and Occupation dimensions" (Ottomanelli, Barnett, Goetz, 2013, p.

2134); participants were veterans suffering from spinal cord injuries. What VETS does The VETS program was established in response to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 in order to promulgate, distribute and promote information and data the will assist veterans in gaining training and education with the parameters of finding a job and/or career after returning home from combat or service in foreign climes.

VETS works hand-in-hand with a number of other veteran groups to ensure the transition from military service to civilian workforce takes place in an efficient and effective manner. The program's mission is accomplished through a number of different avenues, including; outreach programs, grants, partnerships with universities and colleges, and of course, employers. Additionally, the VETS program seeks to interact with groups and employers consistently and on an on-going basis to promote the fact that returning veterans, as a group, offer unique advantages over many non-military employees.

Those advantages include; a sense of honor and duty, a high work rate, and a honed discipline and respect for authority. Disabled Veterans Many veterans returning from combat service has experienced injuries, lost limbs, and other calamitous events to their persons. The VETS program has a special focus on these individuals "with a maximum emphasis directed toward serving those who are economically or educationally disadvantaged, including homeless veterans, and veterans with barriers to employment" (United States, 2015).

The individuals benefiting most from the VETS program are searched out with contact at the many local Department of Veteran Affairs offices, rehabilitation centers, VSO meetings and military installations. Working partnerships After discovering need veterans, many of the veterans are then referred to other organizations that provide further assistance that the VETS program may not.

VETS has working partnerships with such groups as the National Veterans Technical Assistance Center (NVTAC) that touts their role as assisting the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Programs (HVRP) to "help homeless veterans find meaningful and sustainable employment through a mix of approaches -- from leveraging benefit and education resources to building partnerships with growth/green industries" (NVTAC, 2014). Other groups and programs include the Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program, Homeless Female Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Families Programs, and, of course, the Department of Labor Veterans Employment and Training Services (DOL-VETS).

Licensing and Certification VETS is certainly not the only program directed towards assisting returning veterans in acclimating back into civilian life, nor is it the only one that focuses on finding jobs for those veterans. It is a program that has been effective in accomplishing its goals and objectives, and doing so in an efficient manner by providing such assistance as helping veterans obtain the correct licensing and certification needed for employment in a number of.