Vet CenterReadjustment Counseling Services for Veterans

Readjustment Counseling Service

We are the community-based professionals within the VA who welcome home the war veteran by providing top-quality, compassionate readjustment assistance to the veteran and their family in order to facilitate a successful return to civilian life within their community.

Vet Centers’ History

• First organized by veterans for veterans • Storefront outreach to Vietnam Vets• Significant numbers still having readjustment

issues.• Main idea was peer to peer counseling

• Enacted by Congress in 1979 – PL 96-22• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)• Separate charter and scope of operation

Veterans serving Veterans

Mission of Readjustment Counseling Services

Vet Centers serve veterans and their families by providing a continuum of quality care that adds value for veterans, families, and communities. Care includes professional readjustment counseling, community education, outreach to special populations, the brokering of services with community agencies, and provides a key access link between the veteran and other services in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Vet Center Goals

• Provide a broad range of services to Veterans and their families– Counseling – Outreach– Referrals

• Promote a satisfying postwar readjustment to civilian life

Services Provided

•Individual and group counseling

•Marital/family/couples counseling

•Spouse/significant other counseling/group•Grief/bereavement counseling for family members of military personnel who die on activity duty (including reservist and national guard personnel)

Services Provided

•Counseling for military sexual trauma

•Referral to alcohol/drug counseling

•Employment opportunity referrals

•Benefit and assistance referrals

•Liaison to other VA facilities/services

Transition from Warrior to Civilian

Mobile Vet Center

Cost/Eligibility• How does the veteran pay for these services,

and who is eligible?

The veteran or active duty service member has already paid for this service with his or her sacrifice to our country. They only need to provide a DD 214 form showing service time in a combat theater.

Keeping the Promise

“…to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan” – Abraham Lincoln.

Grand Rapids Vet Center Staff

Darryl P. Plunkett, Ph.D. Jennifer Dean, MA, LPCTeam Leader Readjustment Counselor

Gloria Newmiller, LMFT Joe Martinez, MS, LPCReadjustment Counselor Readjustment Counselor

Brian Gripentrog, LMSW Brucina Mayfield, BS Readjustment Counselor Program Support Asst.

How to Contact Us

Grand Rapids Vet Center2050 Breton SE

Grand Rapids, MI 49546Phone: (616) 285-5795

Fax (616) 285-5898

Questions?