Mental Health Awareness Month deserves to move beyond visibility campaigns toward concrete investments in clinical workforce development, according to a column published by The Virginian-Pilot. The piece underscores persistent gaps in access to care, provider shortages, and cultural barriers facing veterans and military families—populations carrying distinctive experiences shaped by service, transition, mobility, and trauma for some.
Awareness without workforce development and cross-sector partnership cannot resolve access gaps, the column argues. Public institutions, clinics, health systems, and community providers must prioritize training and supervising graduate students through clinical partnerships. Virginia has taken steps to support behavioral health workforce development through General Assembly allocations. William & Mary’s School of Education has established a military and veteran counseling track accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)—described as the only program of its kind in Virginia.
The program prepares clinicians to serve veteran and military-connected populations with greater cultural fluency. Many students bring direct military experience: current participants include an adult child of a long-time Army JAG officer, an Air Force spouse, a Navy mother, two honorably retired career U.S. Coast Guard noncommissioned officers, and several students from military households. Veterans and military-connected students entering counseling professions bring distinctive strengths, often serving as translators between cultures.
The underlying conviction is straightforward: Effective counseling for this population demands not just clinical skill but genuine cultural fluency. Virginia’s behavioral health providers and clinical organizations should deepen partnerships with universities, expand high-quality training opportunities, and recognize the strategic importance of cultivating clinicians prepared to serve veteran and military communities.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/05/02/column-mental-health-awareness-month-demands-more-than-awareness/