You Served, You Earned: Helping Veterans Learn about and Use the Benefits They Earned (Apr 22, Northern California)

The Problem: In 2017 it was estimated that 49% of all Veterans used at least one Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefit. That leaves over 50% who are not using any of the many earned VA and CalVet benefits. Why is that? There are a number of reasons, but a key reason is that Veterans do not know about their benefits, or how to sign up for them. Many Veterans and their family members have earned (but unused) benefits which would help improve their lives including health, housing, education, and employment.

At the end of this webinar, participants will:

• Know the most commonly asked questions by Veterans and their family members and where to find the answers!
• Be able to answer many questions, even when the Veteran or Veteran family member posing the question isn’t quite sure what to ask.
• Be able to refer Veterans and their family members to the right Federal, California, and/or local resources so Veterans can obtain and use their earned benefits.

Should I Attend? While all public libraries in California now have Brainfuse’s VetNow, there is even more to helping Veterans in California. This workshop is an opportunity to learn about resources for Veterans and where to find them for Veterans in California. This training will be valuable to all public facing staff in California public libraries.

The workshop will be presented twice by two different teams. You only need to attend one workshop. This workshop will be led by Northern CalVet team members, and the April 28 workshop will have Southern California team members as presenters. If you cannot attend the one for your geographic area, don’t worry, you can attend the other one.

Veterans Connect @ the Library is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

Speaker's slides: PDF (8MB)