Texas Clinic Offers Free Mental Health Services for Veterans, Families

May 10--Matthew Dennison last walked off the distant battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan eight years ago. War still refuses to let him come home.

The Army veteran saw a close friend lose both his legs above the knee when a roadside bomb ripped apart their armored truck in Baghdad in 2007. During two tours in Iraq, Dennison twice suffered concussions in other explosions, and he spent his last deployment, in Afghanistan in 2008, unloading wounded and dying troops from medevac helicopters.

As he struggles to tame the dark memories that seize his thoughts and rupture his sleep, he wonders when his mind will return from the past.

"I don't know how to deal with my reactions," said Dennison, 34, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. "I want to have ways to cope."

His search for treatment brought the Boston resident to San Antonio three weeks ago for counseling at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic. The new center on the Northwest Side provides free mental health care to veterans and their dependents, with treatment starting within five days of an initial screening and typically lasting 12 to 14 weeks.

The clinic, operated in partnership with the San Antonio nonprofit Family Endeavors, began treating clients last month and will hold its official opening today. The Cohen Veterans Network, a nonprofit foundation launched earlier this spring by the billionaire hedge fund manager, will establish additional centers in Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia by year's end.

Cohen, who runs Point72 Asset Management in Connecticut and whose son, Robert, deployed to Afghanistan with the Marines, opened his first clinic for former service members four years ago in New York.

He plans to create a network of 20 to 25 centers across the country by 2020 as part of his $275 million initiative to improve access to behavioral health care for the country's new generation of veterans. An estimated 13 to 20 percent of the 2.6 million troops who deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan cope with PTSD, depression or related conditions linked to their service.

An influx of younger veterans seeking mental health care from the Veterans Affairs Department has overwhelmed its almost 1,000 hospitals and clinics, leading to prolonged wait times and erratic treatment plans. The number of men and women receiving behavioral health services through the VA topped 1.6 million last year, an increase of almost 700,000 since 2006.

Dennison grew frustrated with persistent delays at Boston's VA hospital after his discharge from the Army in 2011. A friend told him about the Cohen clinic in San Antonio, where he had spent long weekends during his Army career while stationed at Fort Hood.

He has met with a psychologist each week since arriving in town, discussing his internal battle with the rage that inexplicably flares over trivial matters and the anxiety that suffocates him in crowded spaces. The sessions have given him a chance to consider that he has experienced normal responses to the extremes of war.

"This is how veterans should be treated," he said, rubbing his hand across the American flag tattoo on his left forearm. "They're helping you understand your reactions and how you can bring them under control. They don't act like you're broken."

Family Endeavors has hired a 17-member staff to run the San Antonio clinic, and nearly all of them are veterans or military spouses or have an immediate family member in the armed forces.

"With veterans and their spouses, we really know how to talk to that audience," said Kat Cole, the clinic's director, who served four years in the Air Force. "We know the acronyms, we understand what it's like to wear the uniform."

The center's location in the Ridgehaven neighborhood places it within a few miles of six of the eight ZIP codes with the highest population of veteran households in Bexar County. The center offers other free services to ease the burden on veterans and their families, including transportation to appointments and on-site child care, along with assistance in finding jobs and housing.

Cole estimated that the staff will treat 600 to 750 veterans and dependents a year through clinic appointments, telehealth services and in-home visits, and she has talked with VA officials in San Antonio about arranging referrals to the center.

The ratio of patients to providers will allow veterans to receive counseling once a week under typical circumstances, or a few days in succession in more urgent cases, a capacity and flexibility almost nonexistent within the VA.

"Post-traumatic stress is not stagnant," said Travis Pearson, the CEO of Family Endeavors. "It doesn't happen only once, and it's not revealed in a single moment. We have the ability to work with veterans on a regular basis over an extended period of time to help them and their families understand their conditions."

The clinic's emphasis on counseling dependents further distinguishes it from the VA, which provides scarce resources for family services. The staff's behavioral health providers treat spouses and children exposed to secondhand trauma and work to repair marriages and parent-child relationships.

"The trauma doesn't just affect the veteran," said Thelma Rivera, a staff social worker. "We want to take a holistic approach that gives each person in the family a better idea of what's happening."

Christopher Vidaurre, a clinic outreach coordinator, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during his 10 years in the Marines. He recognizes the invisible turmoil that some combat veterans endure after leaving the service, and he recalled his own difficulties in reconnecting with his two daughters.

"I know that fight within you to ask for help," he said. "It's not easy for anyone who has been in the military. But you have to figure out a way to find help, both for you and your family."

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