Minorities have been serving in the U.S. Military since the Civil War but it wasn’t until this September VA finally held its first national event to address the unique challenges minorities face.
Dubbed the National Minority Veterans Summit, the VA’s Center for Minority Veterans (CMV) sponsored event was held in Dallas, Texas. The center was established in 1994 but in its twnety five years of existence, this was the first event of its kind.
Minorities make up 24 percent of the veteran population. That number is expected to grow to 36 percent by 2043, according to VA.
At the event, veterans interacted with VA and community partners to learn about services and benefits, and to participate in panel sessions to voice their concerns. CMV used this open dialogue to identify the challenges minority veterans face and share research from their department.
But it isn't clear what VA intends to do with that information, or how they'll share it with minority veterans.
The center publishes a quarterly report highlighting how minorities interact with VA, but the most recent report, however, was published online in March of 2017 -- 2 years ago. That report stated over half of minority veterans had “little to no” awareness of VA benefits and services.
“Vietnam-era African American males are least likely to take advantage of VA benefits and services,” said Dennis May, deputy director for the Center for Minority Veterans. “Sometimes it’s a question of not knowing what those benefits and services are. You know some people think that if they’ve been out for a certain number of years that they’re no longer eligible.”
Besides the challenge of navigating the VA system, other veterans raised concerns about staff diversity.
“Minority veterans would like to see providers in VA who look like them,” May said. “VHA recognizes the challenge in having diversity in their providers VA, like all the other healthcare providers in the country, are competing for talent.”
When asked what VA and the CMV will do with the information gathered at the event, May told Connecting Vets that an after-action report would “hopefully” be published on the center’s website to share with veterans who weren’t able to attend the summit, but he couldn’t specify a concrete timeline for releasing that information.
"One of the big things we’re doing [is] we’re trying to get a data analyst on board to kind of help us move some of this data from the research and data gathering phase to some actionable steps we can take across the enterprise,” May told Connecting Vets.
There is no job opening posted on the VA Careers website for a data analyst at the Center for Minority Veterans.
Connecting Vets reached out to VA for clarification on whether they could process and share the summit's research, or whether they needed another employee to do so. A spokesperson walked back the director's comments calling the hiring of a data analyst a " hypothetical situation" saying CMV "does not have a need for a data analyst at this time."
When pressed on the importance of the information and what would be done with it, VA said, "The feedback CMV received will help guide the office's future efforts."
How that will be done remains a question. May said he and the center’s staff are already planning to hold a summit in 2021.
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