Mecklenburg County Veteran Needs Assessment

Mecklenburg County’s Community Support Services’ Veterans Services Division (MCVSO) has sought to strategically improve their outreach and engagement with veterans and the military community within Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. To achieve this, MCVSO partnered with the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) and Veterans Bridge Home (VBH) to design and deliver a community needs assessment focused on understanding the county’s veteran population, identifying service gaps, understanding barriers to care, and assessing how to best engage the veteran population. A multi-format needs assessment survey was designed and marketed towards the military-connected community within Mecklenburg County. The assessment was supplemented by data from VBH on the NCServes coordinated care efforts for the county and MCVSO data on benefits navigation for veterans, illustrative of efforts to navigate veterans through the many service organizations in Mecklenburg County. Taken together, this analysis provides a holistic picture of the needs, barriers, outcomes, and engagement pathways for this population. Findings were organized into five overarching themes: • Survey Methodology: In-person engagements, digital distributions, physical collateral, mailed paper surveys, and social media postings were used for distribution. Of these, the most effective method of distribution were in-person engagements through community events and partnerships with veteran serving organizations. • Gaps in Services: Gaps in services available to the military-connected population tended to coalesce around complex types of services such as housing and mental health. Service complexity often manifests even in service types with plenty of providers who must still meet high demand for their limited resources. However, there are also services in the county with a paucity of providers and needs there may have gone unmet. • Co-Occurring Needs: Military-connected individuals in the county tended to experience multiple service needs at the same time, either of the same type of service or of different kinds of services. • Barriers to Service Navigation: Barriers to service navigation were often compounded by multiple needs and gaps in services. Individual, population, and systemic barriers can all co-occur for a client, making it difficult for them to reach out for services, remain engaged in the help seeking process, and reach a point where their needs are fully addressed. • Engaging the Veteran Population: Understanding veteran engagement was a critical element to removing barriers and closing service gaps in the county. Effective engagement required clear communication strategies, accessible service delivery, buildup of trust, culturally responsive approaches, and targeted outreach approaches that spoke to a veteran’s lived experiences. Based on these findings, our team recommended the following approaches: • Person-Centered Design: Conducting comprehensive whole-person screening, tracking client journeys across time, investing in welcoming and responsive service environments, addressing lingering unresolved needs, and addressing systemic barriers to services through ongoing coordinated care collaborations help mitigate recurrence of issues and creates a support system for the client. • Outreach and Engagement: Accessing the military-connected population requires nimble strategies that complement the varied experiences of this community. Notably, in-person outreach, including the spouses and family members of a military member or veteran in outreach, and developing targeted strategies for those who do not have strong affinity for their military identity could help connect veterans to the services they need and have earned.