Agency officials and Congress should ensure the implementation of the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act Section 201 follows these priorities. Congress should explore more legislative action where needed:

• Communitywide Grantmaking: Replicate the Continuum of Care model—used by Housing and Urban Development, which funds community units made up of multiple organizations—through a streamlined application process and by assigning a backbone organization to coordinate activities.
• Prioritize Community Responsiveness and Accountability: Create a grant structure that allows communities to use resources in alignment with their specific needs while still providing oversight and accountability. Move this to number two on the list
• Planning Grants: Allocate time and resources to bring local organizations together and to develop common goals and a shared agenda for coordination of services.
• Multiple Sectors: Require organizations (where possible) to partner outside of the veteran-serving space, particularly in areas where resources are scarce.
• Shared Outcomes: Provide resources to support measurement and analytics that ensure coordination is successful and appropriately meeting local needs
• Hub Funding: Provide funding for the staffing and resources needed for the hub-and- spoke model in which one organization refers a client to others in the community.
• Regular Communication: Require recipients to provide semi-annual proof of communitywide convenings or other communication mechanisms.
• Expand Technical Assistance:  Expand on the existing federal technical assistance resources to help communities implement the above recommendations.

Policy Recommendation 2: Improve the process by which community providers can identify transitioning service members moving to their communities.

• Establish a universal screener that assesses specific stressors such as unemployment, financial instability, combat exposure, adverse childhood experiences and other stressors associated with poor transition. Link the screener to navigation infrastructure (e.g. AmericaServes, Combined Arms, Augusta Warrior Partnership), identifying risk factors early and providing targeted support.
• Improve data sharing between the Department of Defense and VA to identify and engage with newly transitioned and underserved veterans in communities.
• Expand proactive outreach programs like the Solid Start and the ETS Sponsorship, which connect new veterans with resources in their communities.
• Invest in data infrastructure improvements within state and county level veteran services and health agencies to promote greater interoperability and a seamless transition from national efforts (e.g., Solid Start) to local delivery of public and community-based services.
• Support and encourage the participation of VHA facilities and VBA-certified officer in community-based networks of care and coordination.

Expand the SAMHSA/VA Governor’s Challenge to End Veteran Suicide to All 50 States.

The SAMHSA/VA Governor’s Challenge to End Veteran Suicide represents an innovative model of collaboration and coordination that blends the benefits of an organic, locally driven approach with the resources and expertise of Federal support. Currently, 28 states are engaged in the Challenge where a wide variety of policymakers, clinicians, social service experts, nonprofits and other leaders convene to develop community-driven approaches to ending veteran suicide.

Develop a competitive grants program and public-private partnership model that gives funding to nonprofit organizations providing in-demand skills training and career placement to veterans, transitioning-service members and spouses. These organizations will:

• Provide trainings for careers that align with the workforce of the future;

• Provide services that are shown to promote both employment and career advancement, such as certifications, skills training and career coaching;
• Demonstrate ability to build partnerships with other organizations helping to provide a continuum of employment support from skills training, credentialing, resume assistance, job pipeline access and employer relations;
• Offer innovative programs that can deliver trainings virtually or are geographically flexible.

Review and improve inter-agency data quality, sharing, and integration practices between VA, DOL, and DOD specific to transition and post-transition employment initiatives. Pursue a unified framework for their effective performance measurement, monitoring, and evaluation.

Expand economic opportunity for military and veteran spouses:

• Create tax credits, and support employer coalitions that promote remote work for military and veteran spouses
• Assess the financial and programmatic implications of providing employment support to spouses of veterans in addition to spouses of service members

• Focus policy and programmatic efforts to tailor support services for women veterans, particularly at the point of military-to-civilian transition:
  • Provide grants to organizations delivering or with the capacity to deliver programs and services supporting women veterans’ unique needs. These organizations may provide services such as employment services, entrepreneurship training, childcare, short-term financial assistance, and social inclusion and support.
  • These organizations could be veteran service organizations that don’t yet offer tailored programming to women veterans, or community-based organizations not yet offering veteran-specific programming.
  • This grant program would both support existing organizations and drive innovation in the social sector to rise and meet an existing need.
• Expand and institutionalize existing pilot programs such as the ETS Sponsorship and the VA’s Solid Start which leverage an individualized, peer-to-peer model that lends itself to tailor services and care for women veterans