U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is introducing a bill to increase the number of peer specialists within the Veterans Affairs health care system. The “P.E.E.R. Act,” or Veteran Partners’ Efforts to Enhance Reintegration Act, was announced on a conference call Wednesday in which Casey outlined the case for more – and more readily available – veteran peer support specialists to share their experiences and support service members diagnosed with mental health disorders.
“There are 1,100 of these peer support specialists already in the VA system right now, with some in centers in Philadelphia … (but) with 22 veterans (dying by) suicide each day … clearly not enough has been done despite improvements at the VA on these issues,” Casey said. There were 1.6 million veterans diagnosed or estimated to have a mental health issue in 2015.
[For more of this story, written by David Singer, go to http://www.observer-reporter.c...peer_specialist_bill]
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