A Mission to Serve
“Aspire has always served veterans, but we are continuing to put an emphasis on our veterans services because we know the areas we serve in Indiana — Boone, Hamilton, Madison and Marion counties — have the highest number of veterans and veterans’ families in the state,” says Aspire Vice President of Community Partnerships dianna Huddleston.
The U.S. military comprises approximately 1.3 million active-duty service members and 773,000 selected reserve members, according to “The Financial Well-Being of Military and Veteran Families in the United States” report by Purdue University. In 2022, approximately 6.6% of the adult population — 17 million individuals — identified as veterans, and the veteran population continues to evolve.
The report finds that food insecurity remains a critical issue in the military population, especially for junior enlisted families, those with unemployed spouses and minorities. Homelessness is also rising among veterans; and employment disparities persist, especially for military spouses and veterans with service-connected disabilities.
“We’ve been spending more time in veterans’ spaces, attending veteran stand downs, conferences, and sponsoring veterans events because we want them to see and understand Aspire is military and veteran friendly,” Huddleston says. “We want to make sure we’re welcoming military, veterans and their families through whatever door they come to Aspire and that we get them connected to all our services.”
A “military brat” herself, Aspire Clinical Manager Desire’e Greer has a personal connection to the challenges of the military lifestyle.
“I have a passion for this population that is underserved, knowing they’re coming home after serving their country and they’re without housing or food and they often can’t get the healthcare they need,” she says. “This is a group of people we should be protecting and providing for, and Aspire offers so many services to help them feel well and get them back on their feet.”
Born on a military base in Heidelberg, Germany, to a mom and dad who were both nurses in the army, Huddleston has seen the positive impact of veterans being connected to communities and resources focused on their needs.
“We need to be there to help support this population, and Aspire is well equipped to do so,” Huddleston says. “One part of improving our services to veterans includes ensuring all levels of our staff are both culturally sensitive and clinically trained to be able to work with the unique needs that veterans and their families have.”
Greer leads the effort to get Aspire employees trained in the Star Behavioral Health Providers (SBHP) program, created by a collaboration between The Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) at Purdue University, the Center for Deployment Psychology (CDP), Indiana National Guard, the National Guard Bureau and Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration. This training, referral and dissemination program helps service members and their families locate trained civilian behavioral health professionals who better understand service-related challenges.
There are three tiers of training — each emphasizes unique factors that may impact clinical practice with military-connected clients. Greer encourages all Aspire staff to at least receive Tier One training to learn more about what questions you should and should not ask when serving veterans, military and their families.
“I feel like we miss out on the opportunity to serve a lot of veterans and their families because we’re not asking the right questions,” Greer says. “There are so many barriers that often lead veterans to be hesitant to seek treatment, but if we foster an environment that is going to meet them where they are and get them what they need to feel safe, then hopefully the rest will fall into place.”
The training through SBHP covers military culture and the military population, experiences of military-connected families, and deployment cycle stressors and their impact. Participants also have the opportunity to hear a service member’s perspective.
“It’s an all-encompassing mission to serve this population,” Huddleston says. “We outreach to them through various veteran spaces; we do clinical training with our own staff to make sure we are being sensitive to their needs; and we work with our veteran-serving partners. We need to be seen serving in those communities so veterans and their families will think of Aspire when they have need, and they will feel comfortable coming to see us. We want veterans to know we care about them, appreciate them and want to serve them.”
