NORTHROP GRUMMAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Moderator: Lucy Miller
05-19-09/1:00 pm CT
Confirmation #10478561
Page 1
NORTHROP GRUMMAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Moderator:Lucy Miller
May 19, 2009
1:00 pm CT
Operator:Good afternoon and welcome.My name is (Patricia) and I’ll be your conference operator today.At this time I’d like to welcome everyone to the Veterans Benefit conference call.
All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers remarks there will be a question and answer session.If you would like to ask a question during this time simply press star and then the number 1 on your telephone keypad.
If you would like withdrawal your question, press the pound key.Thank you.
Ms. Lucy Miller you may start your conference.
Lucy Miller:Thanks (Patricia).Welcome everybody.Let’s hope we have better luck with this conference call than we had with our week ago, first attempt at training by Wimba.
Feel - rest assured that this will go very well today.We are definitely veterans of teleconference training.I wanted to apologize to everyone again who did log on for our previous attempt at Wimba.But I also want to let you know that we think we have resolved the technical difficulties.
So, we will be doing some additional training by Wimba so be watching your email to catch notices of that.And some of the tech liaisons like (Laura Coffee) are already doing those trainings.
As a matter of fact, I think (Laura) is running one for regions, I guess that would be one and three right now.
So, anyway.Thanks again for your patience and your understanding and we’re going to just jump in.
All of you should have gotten a PowerPoint presentation.This is entitled, “Providing with the Services to Veterans with Disabilities” and this is Part 1.Part 2 will be exactly a week from today; also from 2 o’clock Eastern to 4 o’clock Eastern time and Part 2 is going to focus really on the meat of the actual benefits.Those veterans, the VA compensation and the VA pension benefits and all of the associated bells and whistles.
Today, we’re going to focus on some of the things many of us kind of forget to think about which is that employment roll that WHIPA projects now have or the most current emphasis on that.
So, we’re really going to look at where to point veterans to get help with those employment services and support and we’re going to peek at a bunch of different programs and hopefully challenge you to think about some resources that you otherwise would not perhaps have occurred to you.
I guess the first question on everybody’s mind; we’re going to move onto that first slide in the presentation, “Why the Current Emphasis on Serving Veterans”.I think there is a lot of misunderstanding in our field that veterans’ benefits and social security disability benefits are somehow mutually exclusive.
And actually, at one point in the not so distant past, that was in fact the case.That if you were getting a veterans disability benefit you did not get social security benefits as well.But that has not been the case for some time.
I think another issue we have is we know what our eligibility for our services are.We know that you have to already be receiving a social security disability benefit to get with the services.But I think we don’t think to ask people, “are you also a veteran”?Are you also getting any type of veterans’ benefits?
And that’s a shame because if you find out that someone is a veteran, as you’ll see today, it opens this incredible world of other benefits, other ways to get help with things like college education, retrofitting a vehicle, getting help to modify your home to accommodate your disability.There is just this myriad of other programs in the veteran’s world that if you have access to that it’s a very important thing for a (CWHIP)to know.That gives us tremendous resources.
So, that’s the myth.That somehow or other people who get VA benefits don’t also get social security and that just isn’t the truth.As a matter of fact, what’s interesting I think about these most current engagements, they were in Afghanistan and Iraq.A lot of the gentlemen and women who are serving in those theaters do have a connection to the civilian economy.
Remember that a lot of these folks came out of the Reserves or the National Guard.These folks had other lives and we’re called up and sent overseas.These are people who have worked substantially; they’ve paid into the social security system.When they become disabled through their engagement in the military they come home, they’re qualifying for social security disability benefits in addition to those VA benefits.
So, the fact of the matter is we have an overlapping population.Many people who are WHIPA eligible will be receiving veterans’ benefits and we need to be a little bit better about figuring out who among those individuals were servicing might qualify.
Lets move onto that next slide.What are some special considerations when we’re thinking about delivering WHIPA services to veterans with disabilities?And you’ll see on this slide that I have five bullets down there.Now we’re going to cover one, two and three and four and five are going to be saved for Part 2.It’s a lot to know in terms of really customizing the services that you deliver for that veterans population.
First of all there are some special things we need to think about when we conduct outreach and we’ll cover those in just a minute.
It’s very interesting to me that the veteran’s community is very separate from the disability community.They’re very siloed, these two worlds.And a lot of veterans are not accessing the kind of traditional disabilities services that we would accustomed to.
A lot of veterans with disabilities don’t access your state VR agency, they may not be going to your one stop career centers.They’re using the veteran’s services which is very separate and distinct.And you may not be able to reach out to veterans by using your same old contacts.
Secondly, there are so many important employment services and supports that are only available to veterans that you and I may not be accustomed too if the only population we’ve worked with are sort of your average folks with disabilities who don’t have military service backgrounds.And that’s a whole new world for us.And we’re going to spend a lot of time on that today.
And finally it’s just the many specialized benefit programs, not just the employment services or support available to veterans but this incredibly complex world of benefit programs.
You’ve got cash benefit programs.You’ve got healthcare insurance.You’ve got myriad other little additional bells and whistles.And if you get 30% disability you can get this extra thing and if you have this your family members can get benefits.It’s incredibly complex.
When I did the research to write the briefing paper that you got and the material in your (CWHIP) manual I was amazed at how complicated this whole system is.
I thought social security was crazy but these programs available for veterans is a whole new world and it is really complicated.
Now, like I said, the last two bullets we’ll cover next week.So, let’s go ahead and jump in with some ideas about how to conduct outreach to veterans.
Now, you will discover if you haven’t already, that the veteran’s world and the traditional disability world are siloed.They are very separate and distinct and the overlap, although it’s getting better, really isn’t very good.
A lot of that trends with very severe disabilities are coming out of the VA healthcare system.They’re connected to the veteran’s programs, they may have applied for the VA disability benefits but they really don’t understand that there’s this whole other world for them outside of the VA that is the state VR systems, your Centers for Independent Living all of those non- veteran’s, non-military related disabilities services.
And that’s our world.So, we’re enmeshed in that and unfortunately I think we get a little bit stuck in that rut that we’re continuing to simply make contacts with our usual disability contacts.
And we’ve got to break out of that world and start figuring out where to go to make contacts, to establish relationships with people who can refer qualified veterans to our programs.And it really does take and effort.If you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always gonna get what you’ve always gotten.And we’ve got to break out of our old patterns and try to make some new contacts to bring to veterans who are qualified for our services in.
And it really does take a special effort.We have to really do some research in our community.
Now, the next slide was brainstorming activity and some of you, if you were on the Wimba program that we attempted and got halfway through last week, this is a lot of fun.We don’t really have a way to do this with an operator assisted teleconference but that’s okay because I do have some places that I just want to name for you and they’re also on the upcoming slide.
Just some places for you to start making contact.Now, first and foremost would be your VA hospital.That’s your US Department of Veteran’s Affairs hospitals.And there are many of these all around the country.
Now, your particular city or town may not have one and I’ll show you a Web site in a minute where you can go to find that out.But if your community does have a veteran’s hospital, a VA hospital, that’s the place to go.
Now, who in the VA hospital do you think you should contact?Because that’s a pretty big place.Well, let me tell you that in every VA hospital there is a designated person, and sometimes more than one, who are the “benefits experts”.These are the gentlemen, mostly men, who the veterans go to when they have questions about their veterans’ benefits.
That person, that benefits expert, is like your counterpart.And that’s the person that you probably want to start making contact with.You don’t want to stop there because, again, within the VA hospital there’s lots of different subgroups and you want to get the word out about your service.But that is a good place to start.
Another wonderful place are VA healthcare centers.Those are like clinics and they’re separate and distinct from the hospitals and smaller communities that may not have a hospital are more likely to have a healthcare center.
And, again, I’ll show you a Web site in just a minute where you go to find exactly where those places are.
Another place that unless you’ve maybe had some contact with vets you probably wouldn’t know about is something called veteran’s service centers or Vet Centers.And these are - I don’t know how to describe it.It’s kind of like your one stop shopping for veterans and their family members for things like mental health counseling, reintegration services, case management, information and referrals.The purpose of these centers is to help veterans kind of reintegrate into non-military life when they come out of the military service.
And, different centers will have different programs or staff but that’s their whole purpose is to help veterans be successful when they come back into civilian life.
And again, many, many communities have these and you may not be aware of those.Now, those are the top three.VA hospitals, the healthcare clinics and then the vet service centers.
There are some other places you can go.You can go to your DAV, or Disabled American Veterans.You can go to your VFWs.You can also find - you can Google this online.Most states have their own veteran’s center just for the state.And the people who staff those centers are veterans themselves and very knowledgeable about resources or services in your home state or your home community.
They’re an overlooked source of information in serving vets and that’s a shame because they are real close to you state and your locale and the ladies and gentlemen who staff those programs really are very knowledgeable.
Now, let’s take a look at the next slide.This is where we really get into your vet service centers.And this was something new to me and I actually made a call to the home service center here in Louisville.
Now Louisville, Kentucky we’re highly militarized.We have Fort Knox just south of us, Fort Campbell and we have a huge Veteran’s Administration Hospital here in Louisville.So, we have lots of the veteran’s services and we have a very busy veteran’s service center here.
And I was fortunate enough to contact the manager here and he was wonderful in terms of giving me information about exactly what services the offer.I’m very interested in finding out what I did and what the WHIPA projects do.
And there service centers kind of differ a little bit for each area.Excuse me, I’m getting over a cold.But they are going to have some core services that all of the centers will offer.
First and foremost they’re going to be that outreach information conduit.They can answer lots and lots of questions about a variety of issues and the ladies and gentlemen staffing their phones are very knowledgeable about services for veterans and really can provide a lot of information.
They also do a lot of counseling and that can be mental health counseling that can be family counseling that can just be counseling about readjustment, reintegration kind of getting back into the civilian world.If a veteran is having trouble with employment this a wonderful place to start and then their staff can do that case management, that information and referral to those other pieces within the community that specialize in certain needs or certain areas.
Something that a lot of people don’t know is that services are also available for family members of eligible veterans for military related issues and questions about whether or not an issue would be military related you can call that vet service center and ask.
If you get online and read about the vet service center they’re very clear about their mission and that the services that they provide are considered an entitlement, a debt really, to the veterans who served their country and none of the services offered from a vet service center would be of any cost.
So, it’s a wonderful place to start.If you didn’t know that they exist knows your chance to figure it out.There are 232 of these community based centers and, let me see if it’s the next slide, I believe that may give you the contact information.Yep.
The next slide does offer the Web site there, the VA hospitals and the healthcare centers.You can go to this Web site and there’s a directory.And you can actually type in your zip code or your locale and press enter and up it will pop.
You’ve got the vet centers.Those are the VA vet centers and there’s also a directory there.And by all means, make contact with individuals at the vet service centers.Hopefully they’ll be just as helpful as the ones here in Louisville were.
And finally there’s a connection there to your State Veteran’s Agency.There is a whole directory of these agencies sponsored by the state government.Every single state has one and they’re in addition to those military or VA resources that are listed above.
And those ladies and gentlemen are really, really helpful.Let’s talk a little bit on the next slide just about some considerations.Some things you have to think about when you’re doing outreach for the veteran’s community or that population.
First and foremost, we want to make absolutely sure that the people are doing outreach to understand who is eligible for WHIPA services.Now, there’s misunderstandings sometimes that a veteran who gets veteran benefits is automatically qualified or WHIPA services and that’s not the case.
Remember that WHIPA programming is 100% funded in most cases by social security and the same rules apply.You have to already be on a social security disability benefit in order to qualify for WHIPA services.
Now, you may certainly be a co-accruing, you may have a VA benefit and social security but the individual has to already be on social security in order to get services from you.
You’ll end up, if you’re not careful, with a whole lot of requests for help with the social security disability application process.And all of you should know that that is not an area that you’re permitted to provide very much assistance in.
Certainly provide information, answer questions, certainly providing your veteran’s contacts with information about eligibility for the disability programs would be helpful.There’s lots of social security publications that cover that and many are written just for the veterans population, by the way.