National Association of Social Workers

From the President

Our duty to women warriors

By Jeane Anastas, PhD, LMSW

Veteran’s Day is always celebrated in November, a time when we pause to remember the service and sacrifices of service members, veterans, and their families.

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, joined us at July’s Hope Conference to announce a collaboration between NASW and the Joining Forces Initiative that she and first lady Michelle Obama created to ensure that the health, mental health and economic needs of this population are being met.

In her remarks, Biden reminded us that many service members, veterans, and their families seek services in their home communities from providers who are not affiliated with the Department of Defense or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Therefore, as a profession, we all have a responsibility to understand the new and ongoing needs of this segment of our population.         

When we say “service members” or “veterans,” we still most often think of men. Despite the nation’s laudable efforts to treat those returning from current combat assignments differently from those who returned from Vietnam, we still struggle with availability and appropriateness of resources.

Since the United States moved to an all-volunteer military in the early 1970s, the number of women in the armed services has risen steadily, and the variety of roles they fill has greatly increased. Yet the specific challenges faced by women who are active in — or have retired from or left — the military are not being addressed as well as they should be.

While women have served in the military, even in disguise, from the Revolutionary War onward, they have been official members of the armed forces since 1901. In the Civil War, many women nursed injured troops on both sides of the conflict, which helped create the profession of nursing in the United States.

In the early 20th century, psychiatric social work — what is now called clinical social work — was born in part from the need to treat soldiers returning from World War I suffering from shell shock. Today the VA is the single largest employer of master’s-prepared social workers in the United States, with more than 9,000 professional social workers employed.

Hence, the challenges faced by service members, veterans and their families are not marginal to social work, but central and worthy of continued attention. The challenges facing female service members and veterans require special consideration, as this is the first time our nation has truly addressed their unique circumstances.

Leaving physical wounds and medical problems aside, many of these women — like their male counterparts — suffer from combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and related psychiatric challenges. As a result, they may face barriers to successful reintegration, both within their families and in their communities.

The trauma that has injured a growing number of women (as well as a substantial number of men) often relates to sexual harassment and sexual assault suffered at the hands of other service members, giving rise to a whole new diagnosis of “MST” or military sexual trauma.

Given that some of the women who have experienced such trauma feel the need for treatment facilities that require privacy away from men as fellow patients, the VA concedes that more gender-specific services are needed and is taking steps to ensure that all veterans have the services they need and have earned.

Like men who serve, women on active duty may be separated from children and spouses or partners for long periods of time and may struggle with reintegrating to family life when they return home. Rates of intimate-partner violence are high among women in the military and among wives of service members. Poverty and unemployment may plague women veterans. Research has also shown that women veterans are at higher risk of homelessness than their male counterparts.

The VA has pledged to end homelessness among veterans by 2016, but it will likely take special efforts to address homelessness among women veterans who, like other women in the shelter system, may be seeking permanent affordable housing not just for themselves but for their children as well.

These are just some of the challenges facing those who represent the new face of our nation’s military. As a profession with a mandate to care for all people in need, we have a special responsibility to service members, veterans and their families, but particularly to those service women who are being left behind.

NASW has committed through the Joining Forces initiative to provide continuing education opportunities, as well as standards for practice and a professional credential for all social workers to competently work with service members, veterans and their families.

Learning more about the battles facing our nation’s military at home is the least we can do for those who make great sacrifices on battlefields most of us will never see.

From November 2012 NASW News. © 2012 National Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of copyright and credit to the NASW News must appear on all copies made. This permission does not apply to reproduction for advertising, promotion, resale, or other commercial purposes.