Psychosocial Assistance Without Borders

A report released this week by the RAND Corporation, focusing on the rates of PTSD, major depression, and traumatic brain injury in Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans. Researchers also conducted focus groups with military families and spouses about these issues and a model of the economic impact of these conditions.

The authors of the report recommend that effective programs incorporating evidence-based care must be developed to treat veterans experiencing problems such as PTSD and major depression, and suggest that such programs would actually have a negligible or even net positive cost due to their mitigation of the negative economic impact associated with these events.

There is a summary and free download of report results here:
RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research (2008). Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation.

The Meyer Foundation supports capable, community-based organizations that foster the well-being of all people in the Washington DC region.

According to Meyer Foundation's national survey of nearly 6,000 next generation leaders. a skilled, committed, and diverse pool of next generation leaders would like to be nonprofit executive directors in the future, However, the survey also finds that there are significant barriers: work-life balance, insufficient life-long earning potential, lack of mentorship...

These children serve in a variety of different capacities: as cooks, as quartermasters, as sexual slaves and as combat troops. Their experiences can result in high exposure to profoundly traumatic events, placing them at extreme risk for the development of serious emotional disorders. Psychosocial services targeting former child soldiers are required to help these children transition from their roles as members of armed forces back into a healthy and stable civilian life.

Brief Summary with link to the 100+ page report