APA Services recently submitted testimony for two separate hearings addressing veterans’ mental health. On April 29, 2025, the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs held a hearing entitled “Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Outreach to Support Veterans’ Mental Healthopens in new window.” In the association’s statement for the record (PDF, 234KB)opens in new window, APA’s Chief Advocacy Officer Katherine McGuire, MSc, highlighted three important issues to the delivery of quality mental health care: ensuring demonstrated effectiveness for the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant program reauthorization; protecting veteran privacy and confidentiality; and providing adequate mental health provider training and staffing.
APA Services acknowledged the important role of the Fox grant program to supplement the VA’s suicide prevention efforts, but called on continued and strengthened efforts to utilize comprehensive outcome data to better understand participating community programs’ effectiveness at reducing veteran suicide risk. In keeping with the VA’s gold standard of care in mental health treatment, McGuire encouraged that reauthorization of the program “focus on serving more veterans and ensuring demonstrated outcomes.”
The statement also raised serious concerns regarding ensuring veteran privacy and confidentiality. Amid the recent policy change requiring most federal employees to return to the office, numerous reports of VA mental health providers lacking adequate or appropriate space for the delivery of mental health care have surfaced. APA Services encouraged the committee to consider waivers for mental health providers being asked to return to shared space and to phase-in return to work to address these critical concerns. Serving veterans, many of whom experience trauma and sensitive mental health conditions, remains a top priority for many APA members. Ensuring the protection of their patient confidentiality and privacy, including adequate physical space within VA facilities to provide mental health services, is necessary to prioritize veterans’ needs. During the hearing, Senators Patty Murray (D–Washington) and Ruben Gallego (D–Arizona) echoed these concerns and called on the VA to address the problem.
The statement also emphasized the need to provide adequate mental health provider training and staffing. McGuire highlighted that psychology remains the number one clinical workforce shortage area within the VA and stated that “continued investment into the VA mental health workforce is more important than ever.”
On April 30, 2025, APA Services submitted a second statement for the record (PDF, 229KB)opens in new window to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Their hearing focused on examining VA’s mental health policiesopens in new window. McGuire again stressed concerns regarding veteran privacy and confidentiality, as well as the importance of investing in mental health provider training and staffing at the VA, but also spoke to the importance of maintaining clinical excellence and care coordination. APA Services encouraged the committee to “support evidence-based treatments, measurement-based care, and the VA’s critical role in care coordination.” Specifically, the statement stressed the importance of VA authorization, exacting standards for clinical excellence, and oversight to ensure quality care, and that such standards should be applied everywhere a veteran might receive care, including in the community.
APA Services will continue to focus on veterans’ mental health and the VA policies necessary for quality delivery of care to those who served our nation.
For more information, contact K. Conwell Smith.