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Description:
To build bridges between local community resources and military families, Congress established the National Demonstration Program for Citizen-Soldier Support. Spearheaded by the Odum Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Citizen-Soldier Support Program (CSSP) focuses on all branches of the military and other reserve component members and families.

While it may be assumed that any post deployment mental health problems of service members and veterans would be identified and treated with in the Department of Defense/Department of Veterans Affairs medical care continuum, available data suggest that only about 37% of the people qualified for DOD/VA benefits will seek assistance from the VA. This means there is a silent majority not receiving the care they need.

This course is designed to help primary care physicians, case workers, mental health providers - who may see a veteran or family member on an unrelated issue - develop a better understanding of the culture in which veterans and their families live and work, and provide best practices for identifying, assessing and treating mental health disorders that result from the trauma of war.

Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:

- Identify strategies for establishing and maintaining a therapeutic alliance with combat veterans and their families by examining military structure and culture and the combat experience

- Identify Combat Operational Stress Injury (COSI) symptoms and assessment techniques

- Identify Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and assessment techniques

- Identify treatment options for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

- Identify frames of mental health assessment and treatment options for military personnel

- Identify how family relationships are impacted by mobilization, deployment and redeployment

- Identify services available for veterans and their families, including those provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and TRICARE

NOTES: Video portions of this course may require a high-speed internet connection for optimum effectiveness. Credit awarded for this course may not be accepted by certifying boards in some disciplines and in some states. It is not the responsibility of CSSP to determine applicability of credit for any learner.

Author(s):
Harold Kudler, MD
Associate Director, Clinical
Mental Health Coordinator, VISN 6
Durham VA Medical Center
Associate Clinical Professor,
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,
Duke University
harold.kudler@va.gov

Dr. Kudler trained at Yale and is Associate Clinical Professor at Duke. He has received teaching awards from the Duke Department of Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Kudler coordinates mental health services for a three state region of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and, from 2000 through 2005 co-chaired VA’s Special Committee on PTSD, which reports to Congress. He founded the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies’ (ISTSS) PTSD Practice Guidelines taskforce and has served on the ISTSS Board of Directors. He co-led development of a joint VA/Department of Defense guideline for the management of posttraumatic stress. Dr. Kudler is Associate Director of the VA's Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) for Deployment Mental Health.

Charlotte M. Wilmer, MSW, LCSW
Counseling Services Branch, Marine & Family Services Division
Marine Corps Community Services
Camp LeJeune, NC

Charlotte Wilmer has been a therapist since 1995 at the Community Counseling Center, Camp LeJeune, NC, home of over 45,000 Marines and Sailors and the largest Marine Corp base on the East Coast. She received training at the National Center for PTSD in Palo Alto and is trained in EMDR and Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy. Charlotte is the co-author of a chapter dealing with military families and deployment in a soon to be published book for civilians. Before she joined the mental health field, she served as Staff Director to Congressman John Breaux, represented rural electric cooperatives before Congress, managed a number of political campaigns and was Vice President of a government relationship consulting firm.

Disclosure: Greensboro AHEC adheres to the ACCME Standards regarding industry support of continuing medical education. Harold Kudler, MD has no actual or potential conflict of interest in relation to this program. Charlotte Wilmer, MSW, LCSW has no actual or potential conflict of interest in relation to this program. The planning committee consisting of Tina Latham, Renea Paradis, Karen Zeliff, Michael Willet, Bob Iddings have no actual or potential conflict of interest in relation to this program. Speakers will also state when off-label or experimental use of drugs or devices is incorporated in their presentations. There is no commercial support for this program.

Target Audience:
Primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists and other interested mental health providers.

Length: 3 Hours

Credit Type(s): 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit, 3.0 Contact Hours NBCC - Provider #5470, 3.0 Contact Hours, 0.3 CEU

AHEConnect participants should verify all continuing education credit information regarding licensure requirements with their state licensing board(s). Licenses are offered and renewed at the sole discretion of the state boards.