Study of Employment Retention Veterans (SERVe): Improving Reintegration of Oregon National Guard and Reserves in the Workplace

This presentation will provide an overview of the recently funded Department of Defense grant (Principal Investigator, Leslie Hammer, Ph.D.). Since 9/11 over 2.8 million United States military personnel have served in and around Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2018, the number of post-9/11 veterans is projected to top 3.1 million. Of these most recent veterans, 18% have difficulty holding a job and many experience family difficulty. Presently, a third or more of these post-9/11 veterans – some 874,728 service members and counting – have deployed to various global hotspots as active-duty reservists of the U.S. armed forces. Unemployment, underemployment and mental health symptoms are trending higher among reservist veterans than active-duty. In addition to facing unique employer perceptions upon their return, reservist veterans, unlike active-duty troops, are reintegrating with less community and social supports such as: free military housing; convenient medical care; accessible quality child care and steady and secure employment. Neurobiological analysis of the effects of high levels of social support reveal discrete physiological mechanisms that can lower PTSD symptoms and increase social bonding. The U.S. military transitions about 160,000 active-duty troops and demobilizes 110,000 reservists annually. With hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning from overseas little focus has been placed on post-deployment efforts of veterans around work-family conflict and job retention. Since maintaining gainful employment is critical to successful reintegration, along with our research partners we plan to develop, implement and evaluate our (V)eteran (S)upportive (S)upervisor (T)raining intervention