These are two among many other areas that veteran peers are providing effective supports.

Getting civilians into the act

The mental health care provided by civilians for veterans can also benefit from lessons learned from these veteran-driven programs.

Understanding the unique culture shared by military members and their families can be a daunting task for Americans who have not experienced the military lifestyle. Given the volunteer nature of our armed services and the historically small size of our current force, this culture is familiar to only a small proportion of American citizens. Instead of assuming this cultural gap cannot be breached, we are learning the powerful impact that civilian health care professionals can make when they become trained in military culture and practice military-informed care.

Research efforts are underway to understand how to best train practitioners to better understand the clinical impact of this cultural competency. Research can assess, for example, whether this knowledge can help improve veterans engagement in care, increase their treatment completion and improve their clinical outcomes.

The VA has hired 800 peers as of 2013 with 100 more planned annually. In addition to Texas, New York, Michigan and California, as well as Canada and the United Kingdom, have veteran peer support programs.

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Sometimes the best medicine for a veteran is the company of another veteran - The Times and Democrat