The Road Home Program at Rush

The Road Home Program The National Center of Excellence for Veterans and Their Families at Rush After military service, returning to civilian life comes with an array of difficulties society has only recently begun to understand — unseen wounds like post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, depression and economic hardships. The Road Home Program at Rush, launched in 2014, provides veterans of all eras, active duty service members and their families with innovative, evidence-based mental and behavioral health care — regardless of discharge status or ability to pay. Rush is one of four academic medical centers that comprise the Wounded Warrior Project®’s Warrior Care Network®.

Innovating mental health care for veterans — and everyone affected by trauma The treatment models created and rigorously evaluated at the Road Home Program are proving so successful that they are now being emulated by veterans’ mental health care providers around the country.

Below are just a few highlights of these nationally recognized services: •

A two-week-long Intensive Outpatient Program, or IOP — an accelerated treatment model for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, where groups of eight to 12 veterans from across the country receive more than 100 hours of treatment

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Outpatient psychotherapy and mental health care offerings, available virtually and in-person in Chicago and at our satellite clinic in downstate Effingham, Ill., focused on immediate symptom reduction and long-term mental health recovery

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Treatment programs specifically designed for survivors of military sexual trauma, including a regularly offered IOP and outpatient therapy

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Therapy services for moral injury, including counseling provided by the program’s staff chaplain

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Couples therapy and specialized programming for veterans’ loved ones, including spouses/partners, children and caregivers

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An extensive research program to devise best practices and improve mental and behavioral health outcomes for veterans — and inform care for other populations affected by trauma

Delivering life-changing, lifesaving results The Road Home Program provides transformational support that demonstrably improves clients’ ability to function at home, at work and socially: •

More than half of the veterans who complete the IOP (a remarkable 96% of participants do) experience such substantial improvement that they no longer screen positive for PTSD, and three-quarters of participants experience clinically significant reductions in symptoms in just two weeks of treatment.

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The cognitive processing therapy at the center of the Road Home Program’s IOP helps reduce measures of suicidal ideation in 70% of participants, and these reductions can be maintained even one year after program completion.

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To date, more than 65,000 hours of care have been delivered to veterans and family members, who never see a bill for services.

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Of veterans who participated in the IOP, 92% reported that the help they received made a positive difference in their lives.

“We know the work we’re doing is literally changing lives, and even more so, it’s shattering conventional assumptions, which have plagued the veteran community for years, that PTSD is untreatable or that it’s no use getting help.”

— Brian Klassen, PhD Clinical Director of the Road Home Program

Using data and research to drive continuous improvement Although veterans now have access to more evidence-based treatments than before, not every veteran experiences the same exceptional outcomes. That’s why Road Home Program researchers study more than 2,200 different data points on each IOP participant and use machine learning tools to identify patterns that will predict their responses to different therapeutic approaches.

Researchers also work to apply this personalized approach and treatment models pioneered at the Road Home Program to other populations who experience high rates of trauma, such as first responders, certain frontline health care workers and victims of community violence.

The Road Home Program’s success in harnessing the power of data and information technology to guide clinical care has differentiated the Rush team at a national level. Many of the award-winning data collection and analysis tools developed by the Road Home Program have been implemented by all four academic medical centers that comprise the Warrior Care Network®, and Rush serves as the coordinating center for these data.

Your Support Makes a Difference in Veterans’ Lives The Road Home Program’s mission is just beginning. Continued donor support enables us to sustain our impact, drive continued innovation in mental health care, and ensure no veterans, active duty service members or family members of these individuals face barriers to receiving the care they need.

Please support our mission to help veterans and their families on their road home.

To make a gift or learn more about supporting the Road Home Program, contact: Michelle Boardman Director of Development (312) 942-6884 michelle_a_boardman@rush.edu