Injured vets get second chance at education
WEST L.A. For the past eight months a group of 28 men and women, fresh from combat in the Middle East, their battle wounds evident in hearing losses and traumatic brain injuries, have been given a second chance at higher learning.
They’re students of a new course offered at the West L.A. Veterans Administration campus through Santa Monica College’s Acquired Brain Injury Program, providing veterans a once-a-week transition seminar covering the fundamentals of being a college student, from note-taking to writing essays.
“When we learned the signature injury for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts is traumatic brain injury, we went to the VA and expressed a strong desire to be helpful in any way possible,” Sandra Burnett, a faculty specialist in the ABI program, said.
The free program launched in the fall semester of 2007, all of its students experiencing some type of effect from war-related brain injury, whether it be communication problems or memory loss.
The program addresses how the veterans will be able to deal with their limitations in college, some which may be forever, others that can be managed, Burnett said.
Altogether nearly 30 men and women have enrolled in the fall and spring semesters and the VA and college are in talks to continue the program in September.
“We cover techniques helpful for any student, like organizational strategy and study skills and time management and how they’re going to become a college student,” Burnett said.
The veterans range in age from the early 20s to late 40s and many have no previous college experience. Some are already making plans to enroll at SMC in the fall.
“They have more self-confidence,” Fred Otten, the vocational rehabilitation specialist at the VA, said. “They feel now they can move ahead into regular classes and some plan to go on and get four-year degrees.
“It’s another way of exposing them to educational services in the community,” he said.
The SMC Acquired Brain Injury program dates back nearly 20 years, its most notable class being “ABI Connections” in which students with the most severe injuries focus on community-learning skills, producing a film at the end of the semester.
While some in the VA program have aspirations of a four-year education, the injuries for others will most likely limit them from pursuing a bachelor’s degree, Otten said.
“There are some more impaired than others,” he said.
The RAND Corp., which is based in Santa Monica, recently released a study on the cognitive care needs of soldiers returning from war, finding that 18.5 percent of returning veterans have post traumatic stress disorder while nearly 20 percent have experienced a traumatic brain injury during deployment.
The study also reported that about half of the veterans that needed treatment actually sought help. Only slightly half of the veterans that received treatment got minimally adequate care. The annual societal costs of TBI treatment is estimated between $27,260 and $32,760 per mild case. That number escalates to $268,900 to $408,520 for a moderate to severe case of traumatic brain injury, the study finds.
With the war ongoing, Burnett believes the program will see an influx of students in the coming semesters.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 26, 2008. Read the original PDF.