June 29, 2010
The Vet Center at Alexian Brothers Medical Center Campus
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New Vet Center Now Open!
Thanks to a recent donation from The Heart of a Marine Foundation, Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village is the first medical center to receive state-of-the-art computers and Aphasia software designed to promote speech, language and cognitive development to veterans who are victims of stroke and head injury.
The addition of these workstations has called for an expansion of the current Vet Center located in the Roncoli Center on the hospital campus.
The resource center offers psychological counseling as well as practical guidance for accessing benefits and services available to veterans. The resource center is open on Thursdays, with drop-in hours between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. and appointment hours between 12 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
ABHS is partnering with the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to offer the resource center. ABHS is providing the space, at the VA department is providing a psychologist and a service officer to work with veterans and their families.
The resource center is an outgrowth of a series of symposiums sponsored by The Workforce Development Learning Institute of ABMC to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, their families and the loved ones of deceased soldiers cope with the complex emotional and practical issues that they often face.
The well attended symposiums have demonstrated to VA officials an unmet need for veterans services in Chicago's northwest suburbs, say Kathleen Prunty, who heads the Workforce Development Learning Institute and developed the symposium concept. Separately, officials at VA centers in Rockford, Ill., and Evanston, Ill, have noticed a spike in closed cases involving veterans from the northwest suburbs. VA officials suspect many of these veterans apparently sought help once at one of the centers but never returned because the trip from their homes was too long. Their cases subsequently were closed, but VA officials believe these veterans still have unmet needs - a theory that will be tested through the new resource center.
The resource center will help veterans and their families cut through red tape and to navigate "the complexities of bureaucracy," Prunty says. "Since the symposium concept was born, Alexian Brothers is seen as being on the front edge of supporting veterans and their family members. We get questions that we might now have answers to. Having a veterans center on the premises will allow us to facilitate getting those answers right here locally."
Prunty credits the Alexian Brothers, Mark Frey, Chief Executive Officer of Alexian Brothers Hospital Network (ABHN), and John Werrbach, ABMC's Chief Executive Officer, for strongly supporting The Workforce Development Learning Institute's efforts to assist military families. This support has enabled the symposium series to take root and has allowed the resource center to become reality, she says. Prunty also is grateful to ABMC employees for designating the symposium series as one of the chief beneficiaries of ABMC's Annual Employee Appeal.
For assistance or to make an appointment please contact the Vet Center at 847-593-8350.
For more information about the symposium series please contact Kathleen Prunty at 847-981-6557.
