Examining Minority Outreach

BY JERRY YAMAMOTO, CHAIR

Barbara Ward, director of the VA Center for Minority Veterans, and Stephanie Birdwell, VA director of the Tribal Governmental Relations Office, attended the committee’s meeting during the National BOD meeting in January. I will report later on the results of these contacts. The committee sought to ascertain the progress of these offices in contacting minority veterans from their respective areas of responsibility.

Our committee wanted to know about the amount of interaction these offices have with their veteran populations and the types of services they have obtained from the VA for veterans who live in urban and remote areas. It’s been a challenge to establish contact with Native American and Alaska Native veterans due to their physical remoteness and their preference to be served by members of their own cultures and ethnicities.

We have the same challenge in contacting a larger ethnic minority population through the contacts of the Center for Minority Veterans. Since that Center arranges multi-day site inspections of VA Regional Offices, Vet Centers, and medical facilities and non-profits that serve veterans for housing and employment, our committee would like to interact with the Center’s Advisory Panel members on one of those inspection trips in 2013.

This is a time when many Vietnam veterans are retiring and reaching out for assistance for their medical conditions or to contact their former buddies. Our committee is dedicated to reaching out to as many veterans as possible to get them seen by the VA and have medical and mental conditions evaluated and treated.