Veterans Unstoppable
The Leader in Veteran Collective Impact Programs
Veterans Unstoppable is a life skills development program designed to foster a healthy War to Peace Readjustment for all Veterans.
Core Phase 1
Support Group
Veterans Unstoppable trained group facilitators guide discussion leading to discovery, problem resolution, and improved personal communication skills. The focus is on helping these men and women become aware of family patterns and life events that shape their view of the world.
These events and patterns are aggravated by traumatic events. The resulting cloud obstructs the Veteran’s view of life. When challenged, this clouded judgment can lead to anger management shortfalls, substance abuse, and lack of personal warmth. This breakdown is the first domino to fall in a series of events that causes poor outcomes such as suicide, homelessness, divorce, and unemployment.
Core Phase 2
Retreat Counseling
In a retreat setting with Veteran counseling staff, each person examines their own past and develops an empowering self-made plan for the future. A blend of educational topics and life projects are spread over several months. Couples are welcome.
Veterans attend 4-day retreat sanctuaries every month for 3 months. Each session has homework assignments customized for each Veteran’s life situation. Veterans are taught fly fishing to help promote healthy lifestyle changes and are given a fly rod to take home.
Veterans Unstoppable: War to Peace Transition
Retreat Program
Veterans Unstoppable is our confidential, no-cost program and service to warriors and their loved ones facing post-traumatic stress injury and other invisible wounds of military service. This program currently has three sub-programs; peer support groups, retreats, and recreational therapy.
ABOUT OUR UNIQUE PROGRAM
Veterans Unstoppable is an individually tailored 5 step life skills development program that fosters healthy life adjustments for Veterans. This addresses differences in each Veterans’ experiences – we recognize there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution to Veteran reintegration. Veterans Unstoppable guides Veterans through the transition process in a supportive and safe environment free from distractions.
Veterans Unstoppable PTSD Program ‘at a glance’
Our 5 Phase Retreat Program
- Phase 1: Managing exposures and their effects
- Phase 2: Reducing Social Conflict
- Phase 3: Managing emotional scars effects on life after service
- Phase 4: Finding Purpose and direction in life
- Phase 5: Healthy lifestyle adjustments through fly fishing and archery
Facts Matter
- Veterans Unstoppable has proven to help Veterans heal damaged relationships
- Program graduates have lower divorce rates
- Lower homelessness rates
- Higher employment rates for Veterans Unstoppable graduate Veterans
- No Veterans Unstoppable graduate has ever committed suicide
Veterans Unstoppable Helps With
- Understanding your past to proactively navigate your future
- Identifying and coping with triggers that can interfere with reintegration
- Relationship building skills
- Gaining closure to traumatic events
- Putting purpose and direction back in your life
Veterans Unstoppable Ground Breaking
STATISTICS
Emotional wounds or PTS injuries can interfere with a Veteran’s ability to navigate relationships. Since 9-11-01 we have lost more active duty service members to suicide than to combat.
- 1 in 5 Veterans return with some degree of Post Traumatic Stress (PTS)
- Recent studies reveal that an average of 22 Veterans commit suicide each day
- Divorce and homeless rates are double civilian rates
We have never lost a Veterans Unstoppable program participant or graduate in the war at home
To enroll in a retreat, or join a peer group please contact (570) 369-3797 or email mbaylis@valorclinic.org
We are currently looking to train peer facilitators to open new peer groups.
Peer to Peer
Peer Group Support
This is a Veteran support group moderated by Veterans Unstoppable trained group facilitators who guide discussions and discovery. This phase focuses on helping these men and women become aware of family patterns and life events that shaped their current view of the world.
We believe these events and patterns are aggravated by traumatic events. The result is a cloud that obstructs the Veteran’s view of life. When tested, this clouded judgment can lead to anger management shortfalls, substance abuse, and lack of personal warmth.
This breakdown in personal skills is the first domino to fall in a series of events causing the alarming statistics.
Peer Retreat Counseling
There is a huge gap in normal between our Veterans and civilians. We take people who may have worked 22 hours days, carrying 70 pounds on their backs in 100-degree heat, while people did their best to try to kill them and the people they care about without complaining, and we immerse them back into a society where people get upset if the boss wants them to stay an extra 15 minutes to complete something.
It is social oil and water.
This kind of social readjustment is paramount.
This phase of the Veterans Unstoppable program is for the moderately and severely affected Veterans. It consists of a blend of education and life projects spread over several months. The program, conducted in a retreat setting with professional counseling staff, begins with a discovery of each individual’s past and ends with an empowering self-made plan for their future. This is a series of six retreats.
Life Skill Application
For some Veterans, it will take some time to practice their skills before returning to “normal life.”
Our Phase 3 is intended to immerse a Veteran in life situations to practice these new skills, without fear of failure.
The goal is to gradually increase human interaction as the Veterans progress until they are able and ready to advance to the workforce.
This transition will provide the best opportunity for the most severely war-affected Veterans to succeed and have a healthy readjustment to civilian life.
In order to successfully integrate this phase of the program, we need a facility where Veterans have the opportunity to interface with people in a working environment.
Currently, Paul’s House (and soon Kevin’s House) serves this need. It creates diverse job opportunities with varying degrees of human interaction overseen by staff familiar with the Veterans Unstoppable program.
The skills required to perform here are ideally suited to the community needs of the tourism-based economy of the local area.
Finding Closure
Traumatic events in war stay with Veterans. Finding closure can relieve some of the burdens of these tragic events.
We help Veterans make a plan to find some closure.
The weekly peer-to-peer support sessions pave the road to a brighter future through our Veterans Unstoppable program.
Recreational Therapy through Fly Fishing
Veterans Unstoppable Class Schedule for 2022
VU-22
Session 1: 7 – 10 January
Session 2: 18 – 21 February
Session 3: 18 – 21 March
VU-23
Session 1: 15 – 18 April
Session 2: 13 – 16 May
Session 3: 10 – 13 June
VU-24
Session 1: 8 – 11 July
Session 2: 19 – 22 August
Session 3: 16 – 19 September
VU-25
Session 1: 14 – 17 October
Session 2: 11 – 14 November
Session 3: 9 – 12 December
Veterans Unstoppable Class Schedule for 2023
VU-26
3 – 6 February
3 – 6 March
VU-27
12 – 15 May
9 – 12 June
VU-28
4 – 7 August
1 – 4 September
VU-29
24 – 27 November
8 – 11 December
Veterans and First Responders
Who We Help
We help those who served our country in uniform from all five services, including the Reserves and National Guard.
We welcome hometown heroes into our Veterans Unstoppable program. Our first responders deal with very similar challenges faced by our Veterans.
Our Law Enforcement heroes, in particular, deal with suicide at alarming rates as well.
We do NOT help Veterans with dishonorable or “in lieu of court marshal” discharges.
