As America prepares to salute the nation’s military veterans for their
service and sacrifice, the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Foundation today marked Veterans Day by announcing more than
$2 million in new grants to support three leading programs that help
post-9/11 veterans and their families transition from military to
civilian life.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 1 million service
members will leave the military between 2011 and 2016, nearly half of
them with children under 20 years old. One in two service families will
find this transition “difficult,” according to a survey by Blue Star
Families.
“For many soldiers and their families, the transition to and from
military life can be challenging due to significant changes in their
circumstances, which often includes disconnection from existing support
networks such as family and friends,” says John Damonti, president,
Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation. “The needs of military families range
from finding ways for veterans to employ their skills at home to
ensuring someone is caring for the caregivers of wounded warriors and
helping children deal with the absence of a mother or father. The
Foundation is working with leading national organizations to address
each of these needs.”
Since its launch in 2011, the Foundation’s Mental Health & Well-Being
initiative has supported and advocated for community-based solutions to
address the mental health and community integration needs of U.S.
military service personnel returning from active duty, their families
and the families of the fallen.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame
Street, will receive $750,000 over two years to establish and
evaluate the effectiveness of a new initiative – Sesame Street for
Families Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life – to support
the stability and well-being of transitioning families with children
ages 2-8. The initiative, an extension of the Workshop’s ongoing work
for military families, will help military families in service and
veteran families in the community make an easier transition to civilian
life. In addition, the initiative will support activities to engage
communities with large veteran populations and the general public to
better understand and recognize the service and sacrifice of all veteran
family members, especially children.
Sesame Workshop will create multimedia resources featuring the Sesame
Street Muppets and will conduct an initial targeted distribution and
evaluation in as many as three states with significant military
populations. These resources will provide critically needed,
research-based messages and strategies via a wide variety of media
platforms, including an adaptive web platform and mobile application
that can facilitate personalized delivery of content based on a family’s
technology and scheduling preferences. The Workshop’s work for military
families is a natural extension of Sesame Street’s longstanding
efforts to help all children grow up smarter, stronger and kinder.
“For more than 45 years, the Workshop has been focused on building
resiliency skills in children to help them achieve their highest
potential,” said Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president for
Community and Family Engagement at Sesame Workshop. “We’ve tackled tough
subjects like incarceration and divorce. Today we continue our efforts
by providing resources that can help military families transition into
civilian life. These new resources not only help children to learn and
grow from these situations; they also provide the adults in their lives
with strategies and tips to help young children during this challenging
time in a way that only Sesame Workshop can – with the help of the
Muppets.”
The Mission Continues will receive $705,375 over 18 months to
expand its Service Platoon program, which helps veterans who are facing
the challenge of adjusting to life at home find new missions in their
local communities. The grant also will help The Mission Continues
evaluate the Service Platoon program’s efficacy in improving the overall
well-being of veterans, including their mental health.
According to a 2011 study by the Pew Research Center, four in 10
post-9/11 veterans struggle with the transition to civilian life.
Volunteer service can help veterans more effectively make that
transition by providing them a new mission as community service
volunteers, helping them set and achieve new goals, and by helping them
to build a new network.
The Mission Continues has two core programs: a Fellowship program where
veterans volunteer with local nonprofit organizations for six months to
address key challenges in their communities, and the Service Platoons,
groups of 30-50 veterans who perform ongoing service missions and
projects around an area of need in the local communities.
"We believe this generation of veterans will be remembered not just for
the challenges they've faced, but for the impact they will make in their
communities when they come home,” said Spencer Kympton, president, The
Mission Continues. “The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation is helping us to
build evidence of the positive impact of veterans' continued service in
their local communities – both on the veteran and on community needs. We
are fortunate to have an experienced research partner in the
Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation investing in the mental health
initiative and enabling us to scale our programs to positively
demonstrate the effects of continued service on veterans’ reintegration."
For the wounded warriors who are unable to continue their service on the
home front, caregivers – often spouses or other family members – play a
critical role. However, these caregivers often suffer from declining
health, strains in family relationships and difficulties at work due to
a lack of support themselves, according to a study published in April
2014 by the RAND Corporation.
Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) will receive
$552,500 to develop and launch the Online Peer Support Community
Program, part of the Military and Veteran Caregiver Network. The program
will provide a structured, digital, social support environment for
caregivers to help increase their sense of connectedness, engagement and
hopefulness while reducing their reported feelings of isolation.
The Online Peer Support Community will mature to offer more than 5,000
hours of programming and will offer more than 50,000 caregivers the
opportunity to connect to others with similar life experiences for
support, information and resources during its first year of
operations. Caregivers will benefit as both recipients and providers of
peer support, sharing their experiences through social platforms such as
online chats, bulletin boards and webinars.
The TAPS project supported by the Foundation is part of a comprehensive,
three-pronged approach to help military and veteran caregiving families
via a structured social support network that includes a Peer Mentor
Support Program and a Community-Based Peer Support Group Program.
"TAPS is honored to be able to disseminate our 20 years of best
practices in the delivery of peer-based emotional support to military
family survivors to caregivers of the wounded, ill and injured who
support those who have given so much in service to this country,” said
TAPS President and Founder Bonnie Carroll.
Dr. Lynda Davis, director of the TAPS Caregiver Network, added: “These
caregivers, America's hidden heroes, far too often find themselves
isolated and alone in their caregiving duties, creating negative
consequences for themselves and their families. With the generous grant
from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, TAPS will be able to connect
thousands of these caregivers, without regard to location or time, to
the proven benefits of peer support."
About the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation
The mission of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation is to promote health
equity and improve the health outcomes of populations disproportionately
affected by serious diseases and health conditions. The Foundation’s Mental
Health & Well-Being initiative in the U.S. focuses funding on
addressing the mental health and reintegration needs of returning
service members, veterans and their families. For more information about
the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, please visit www.bms.com/foundation
or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bmsnews.
Copyright Business Wire 2014