The Steven A. Cohen Veterans Network opened its first military family clinic in Manhattan at Centerstone this week.<\/p>\n
Supported by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the clinic represents an opportunity to help veterans, active service members and their families address their mental health needs. This is the network’s 23rd clinic, which are spread among 21 states.<\/p>\n
Clinic director Katie Hund said Manhattan requires accessible services to support both active duty and retired military members and their families.<\/p>\n
“For those of us that are here, we’re able to recognize that there is such a need,” Hund said. “We have a high population of active duty military and people who separate from the military or retire, and they stick around to experience this great state, and so being able to help support them with doing that means a lot to us.”<\/p>\n
Dr. Anthony Hassan, president and CEO of Cohen Veterans Network, said the area’s high concentration of military members made it a necessity for a program to provide help.<\/p>\n
“It’s very important because the military installation is busy and they’re meeting capacity,” Hassan said. “We’re going to be here as a force multiplier, a gap filler, to make sure that when someone needs help, that they’re not running into a brick wall. They’re going to come here, they’re going to get help, and they’re going to get better, and we’re going to save their family, we’re going to save their life, perhaps, and we’re going to make things better.”<\/p>\n
Hassan said the clinic aims to serve 500 patients and conduct 5,000 clinical sessions in the first year, with plans to increase those numbers annually.<\/p>\n
Uniquely, the clinic allows individuals to define their own family.<\/p>\n
“You don’t have to be blood related or married,” Hund said. “It could be a caregiver, because we really are able to recognize that everyone within that family and support system may also be going through or experiencing some things that are unique to that military or veteran culture.”<\/p>\n
Clinician Marcie Robertson said that military programs do not always allow individuals outside the immediate family to represent the patient.<\/p>\n
“The family is not a legal dependent,” Robertson said. “It’s who the veteran or service member says their family is.”<\/p>\n
Robertson was a military wife for 12 years before losing her husband in Afghanistan. Stories of his impact on others inspired her to give back and make her own impact.<\/p>\n
The clinic is located in the Kansas State Edge District at 1960 Kimball Avenue. Active duty military and veterans can schedule care by calling, emailing, or submitting an online form. The clinic aims to see patients within a couple of days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steven A. Cohen Veterans Network opened its first military family clinic in Manhattan at Centerstone this week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2953,5567,75,84,83,10441,2190,9,24,63,15770],"class_list":{"0":"post-208460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-medicine","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-social-issues"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}