By Patricia Sierra Barrios
Barrett Breaux, chief of military community relations, is working to provide both active military and military veteran students with the best support possible by coordinating support for veterans and active military, making the university’s military community relations office a one-stop information center for students to follow up on services they need.
Breaux said that many active duty military transitioning to veteran status may not always know about their veteran benefits or where to obtain them.
“We’re not really told what those are when we get out of the military,” said Breaux, who is a combat veteran as well. “There is a communication gap. My job is to fill that gap.”
Breaux said he and his staff stay current with current and new benefits as they are introduced.
With a 10 percent active military and veteran student population, the University’s goal to be military embracing received a boost with the inclusion of the University on the top 100 list of Best for Vets, with a rank of 61 out of 100.
“One of our primary duties is to directly link our veteran community to these external resources,” Breaux said.
Besides ensuring that military and veteran students receive their educational benefits, the University’s military office directs students to community resources to help with services including medical, housing, mental health counseling, child care services, jobs and internships.
“Any kind of need that they have, we can find the resource out there to get that provided for them,” Breaux said.
One of the off-campus partners helping reach veterans and active military students is the San Antonio Coalition of Veterans, which includes Partners Across Texas, Military One Source and Homes for Our Troops, who is among the groups that provide off-campus assistance to students.
Partners Across Texas helps provide information on resources such as legal services, deployment support, family support, health, education, employment and financial.
Military One Source offers resources to military families based on their branch of service and includes information on child care, school transition service, youth services, job training programs and wounded warrior and survivor services.
Homes for Our Troops helps severely injured service members and their immediate families by providing free assistance with housing, including special accommodations that foster independence.
On campus services available to active military and veteran students include education benefits, counseling and disability services.
Texas A&M-San Antonio counselor Jolene Des Roches, who oversees Counseling and Disability Support Services, said her office has served approximately 65 veterans since June 2009.
The needs veterans face range from assistance with accessing accommodations to personal and family counseling needs, Des Roches said.
“Issues that our veterans are facing today range from adjustment issues, academic problems, personal counseling needs to chronic mental health issues like PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and depression,” Des Roches added.
Des Roches said the collaboration between her office and the Veteran and Military Community Relations Office helps ensure that veterans receive effective support.
“Together we have collaborated to support and bring on veteran specific educational programming as well as offer referrals to campus and community resources that may assist a veteran student in need,” she said.
Some of the community resources available to active military and veteran students include family counseling, housing assistance, child care referrals, medical access to the Veterans Administration Hospital and treatment for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
“We have a lot of veterans who want to know how to get proper medical evaluation, compensation and benefits, PTSD or TBI ( traumatic brain injury) counseling,” Breaux said.
As the University continues its mission to be military embracing, collaborations between the University and external support services are expected to increase to meet the needs of the veteran population.
