The VETERANetwork team, in partnership with May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust, has created an electronic screener that identifies veterans’ risks and helps guide veteran-serving providers through the use of empirical data to inform their investment decisions of the most effective program components to support veterans’ and their families’ well-being. The Veteran Transition Screener (VTS) was developed from The Veterans Metrics Initiative (TVMI), which collected comprehensive data, across life domains, from approximately 10,000 newly separated post-9/11 veterans over nearly 4 years. The development of the VTS applies research results from two dimensions of TVMI to support at-risk veterans:
- Specific risk factors linked to poor well-being outcomes in each of the four domains of well-being (i.e., health [physical and mental], vocation [employment and education], finances [includes legal and housing], and social relationships) and
- Specific program component needs (e.g., program content and process [delivery mechanisms], barrier-reduction strategies used, and sustainability techniques).
A pilot of the VTS was conducted in collaboration with veteran-serving providers who offer various services to address at least one to multiple well-being domains. The pilot was designed to identify areas for improvement in terms of the tool’s items, structure, and client reports. Following revisions based on feedback from the pilot, the VTS is currently being automated as a freely available system for service providers.
If you are a veteran-serving provider, please contact us at veteranetwork@psu.edu for more information about this effort.