HUNTINGTON — The Hershel "Woody" Williams Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Huntington has been chosen as one of 10 pilot sites nationwide for an agriculture training/behavioral health care services program known as Veterans Affairs Farming and Recovery Mental Health Services (VA FARMS).
Known as "agrotherapy," the program is an eight-week course consisting of six weeks of classroom training and a two-week internship. The first program begins Monday, April 8.
The program is designed to allow veterans the opportunity to learn about agrarian practices including seasonal crop production, indoor growing, beekeeping and honey production, wild harvest, Christmas trees and soil preparation.
"We are very excited about this program," said Fran Burgess, supervisor of the VA FARMS program at the Huntington VA. "We have partnered with the Marshall University Social Work Department and the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. Marshall will provide veteran self-care and family care training and the WVDA will teach the agricultural training classes."
Kim White, assistant social work professor, and Keigan Abel-Brown, a graduate student, developed the six-hour behavioral health workshop.
"The workshop will help veterans develop awareness of their responses to stress, identify new behaviors and responses, and use self-reflection to evaluate effect of behavior change on physical and mental health and relationships," White, a veteran herself, said in a release. "We are very excited about this partnership and look forward to working with veterans and our colleagues at the VAMC and within the Department of Agriculture."
Kent Leonhardt, WVDA commissioner, said while the program will focus on training veterans in a classroom, he believes downstream opportunities will be realized.
"How do we reserve shrinking agricultural workforce trends, as well as provide vital therapy to those who have proudly served their country?" Leonhardt said. "At the end of this project, we hope to have developed best practices to shape what could be a replicable model throughout West Virginia and the United States."
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, specifically the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) Subcommittee, led efforts to create the pilot program and then to provide the resources to help assist wounded veterans in their recovery through agritherapy.
"As we've already seen in West Virginia, agritherapy and other behavioral health treatments have the potential to significantly improve the health and well-being of our veterans," Capito said in a statement.
"This is welcome news for West Virginia and the entire veterans community, and it will help our veterans address behavioral and mental health care needs, while also preparing them for new career opportunities. I am so proud that our state has once again been chosen to serve as a model for what I hope will be many more agritherapy programs across the nation so we can better care for these brave men and women."
The program will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday for six weeks on the main campus. The internships will be with local agricultural producers in surrounding areas.
Veterans who are interested may call Burgess at 304-429-6741, ext. 2661.