Field Placement: Veterans Administration West Los Angeles
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Jim McGuire
Student Name: Myha Ngo
Year: 2008

This summer I sought out an internship at the Veteran’s Administration in West Los Angeles on Wilshire and Sepulveda Boulevard.  Specifically I was placed as a Health Care Administration Trainee at the Health Care for Homeless Re-entry Veterans Initiative in the Homeless Program of the Community Care Service sector.  The HCRV program started in accordance with the VA’s Mental Health Strategic Plan.  Re-entry veterans are often at high risk for mental illness, substance abuse, chronic illness, infectious disease, and homelessness.  In addition, due to high rates of recidivism of those who formerly incarcerated individuals, there is a growing effort in the VA to address this issue as it is in their responsibility to support these individuals. 

The Health Care for Homeless Re-entry Veterans Initiative is a national program which offers outreach to incarcerated homeless veterans in state and federal prisons who are within six months of release.  The purpose of the initiative is to educate inmates about VA services and foster a relationship between the incarcerated veterans and the VA as well as other agencies in order to ensure support in their transition into life outside of prison.  Providing outreach and supportive services for re-entry veterans is in best interest of the veterans themselves, their families, and the larger community. 

The HCRV program is headed by my preceptor Jim McGuire who formerly led the Homeless Program.  The outreach is done by VA social workers who are known as specialists.  As this was the first year of the program, my main project was to develop and facilitate a process evaluation which captured the specialists’ level of engagement with prisons nationally.  Currently, there are about two specialists designated to each of the 21 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) which in all contain about 670 prisons.  Under the guidance of my preceptor, we created a questionnaire, piloted it, refined it, conducted it, did a re-test for quality assurance and presented the data graphically on a Global Information System (GIS) map.  The data gathered from this process evaluation serves as quantitative evidence of the work being done.  The information collected is vital to measure the strength of the program in its current state and will aid in future plans to expand the program. 

My sub-projects included analyzing HCRV inmate data for major trends, conducting a needs assessment for homeless diabetic veterans, and completing a literature review regarding posttraumatic stress syndrome in re-entry veterans.

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