Camaraderie Offsets Trauma for Women Veterans [HuffingtonPost.com]

Six women veterans and advocates gather around a conference table in a dingy room tucked away on the second floor of a shabby-but-historic mid-century building on the West Los Angeles campus of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The women are a mix of white and black, younger and older, still-working and presumably retired. They are social workers, case managers, nonprofit representatives and outreach workers to the homeless. It’s a good thing these women aren’t there for the ambiance, since there’s precious little to be had — other than a wall clock on which someone has scrawled a cartoon face with a Sharpie.

What they are here for — at the 90-minute, once-a-month Women Veterans Collaborative, is an opportunity to do something remarkable — quite literally map out what it will take to ensure specific women veterans, and more broadly the group of women veterans in L.A. county, have access to the services they need, wherever those are located. The women veterans they discuss are known to them personally by name, and they’re talking about them as individuals — thinking about the services they need, whether childcare, or housing, or benefits, and how best to connect them to these services. The emphasis is practical and it’s personal. This group of women, most of whom are veterans, are literally taking steps to walk their sisters home.