USC Training Social Workers to Help Military Families

The following article, by Jia-Rui Chong, is from the Los Angeles Times of 10/23/08.

At the San Diego Armed Services YMCA, social workers who counsel military families can barely keep up with the requests that come pouring in. About two years ago, each social worker dealt with about 16 cases at any given time, said Amanda Cross, senior program director of family outreach. Now, each of the social workers carries a caseload of 23. "As of last year, we now have a wait list, and we've never had that before in over 20 years of operation," Cross said.

With agencies such as Cross' in mind, USC is launching a new program to train therapists who understand the difficulties of military families. Starting next fall, the School of Social Work will offer a military specialization within the two-year master's program in social work. "There's been a lot of problems with post-traumatic stress disorder and other kinds of problems returning service members have, and, at the same time, there is a very limited supply of people educated and prepared to deal with these problems," said Marilyn Flynn, the school's dean. "On average, mental health practitioners are 20 years behind clinical trials, so it is important to do this at a research institution."

The USC program is the first military track based at a university, USC officials said. Flynn came up with the idea about two years ago as she read about the growing mental health problems among returning veterans. Roughly 30% of service members coming back from Iraq are expected to seek mental health care, and the suicide rate in the Army has grown to its highest rate since record-keeping began. It is clear that the men and women returning from war - and their families - require care that reaches beyond what is normally taught in social work school, said Jose Coll, a social worker and former reconnaissance Marine who is chairing USC's program. "What we hear all the time is, 'They don't understand me,'" he said. If a therapist doesn't understand the jargon, "it becomes much harder to build a relationship between the client and the therapist," Coll said. "Many times the client never comes back."

The USC program will inject military-related material into traditional social work classes, such as talking about self-image and the loss of a limb in a class on loss, grief and bereavement. Students will also do 600-hour internships at places such as the drop-in veterans centers or the jail at Camp Pendleton.

Cross, the YMCA official, said she can't wait for USC to produce graduates who can jump right into the agency's heavy caseload. "We used to do a lot of on-the-spot crisis intervention, where they were out of food or they had parenting issues," Cross said. "Now we're seeing a lot of families dealing with anxiety, depression. We have to look for more skilled clinicians."