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2016 Hidden Wounds of War Conference offers PTSD and Moral Injury resources

hauensteincenter.org

The Hidden Wounds of War Conference is consolidating resources helping veterans dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injuries inflicted on the battlefield. WGVU takes a look at how the conference is designed to promote awareness and treatment.

The 2016 Hidden Wounds of War Conference is a two day event held in Grand Rapids at Grand Valley State University’s Loosemore Auditorium. The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies is a co-sponsor, along with the West Michigan Veterans Coalition a host of others. More than 200 veterans and family members, psychologists, physicians and social workers attended last year’s conference. The focus remains the same; identifying community resources for veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injuries. Elena Bridges is Chair of the West Michigan Veterans Coalition. She tells us PTSD will be covered from two perspectives; a medical understanding and ‘moral injury.”

“When you find out that your buddy didn’t make it and you should have been on that mission and you stayed back or, you had to shoot somebody and you realized as you go up there that it was a family and you realize that because they didn’t stop they didn’t understand. It isn’t PTSD but it is something that you have to always fight with. We’re going to really break that down, that whole topic of moral injury. And that’s something relatively new to me that topic of about two years ago when I met Chaplain Col. Herman Keizer I learned a lot and this is very important that we bring it on as a topic within the conference.”

The Hidden Wounds of War Conference is being held in downtown Grand Rapids at Grand Valley State University’s Loosemore Auditorium May 19th and 20th from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Patrick Center, WGVU News.    

Patrick joined WGVU Public Media in December, 2008 after eight years of investigative reporting at Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV8 and three years at WYTV News Channel 33 in Youngstown, Ohio. As News and Public Affairs Director, Patrick manages our daily radio news operation and public interest television programming. An award-winning reporter, Patrick has won multiple Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter/Anchor awards and is a three-time Academy of Television Arts & Sciences EMMY Award winner with 14 nominations.