Capital Caring Announces Partnership with Hero’s Bridge to Support Aging Veterans

Capital Caring Announces Partnership with Hero’s Bridge to Support Aging Veterans

Falls Church, VA — Capital Caring is pleased to announce its partnership with Hero’s Bridge, an organization specializing in the needs of veterans age 65 and older. Hero’s Bridge was recognized with the American Red Cross ‘Military Hero’s’ Award in 2019.

Capital Caring serves hundreds of older veterans each day in Virginia, Maryland and DC and has long recognized and honored their service. Director of Veterans Affairs Lt. Col. David Benhoff states, “While it is important to recognize service, we feel it is important to lead the way in going further and doing more.”

“The partnership with Hero’s Bridge further expands our outreach to the veteran community and those who have a greater risk of social isolation, suicide and a multitude of service-related illnesses,” said Capital Caring President and CEO, Tom Koutsoumpas.

“Senior veterans are stoic, proud individuals who are unfamiliar with reaching out for assistance, so our mission is to serve them, said Hero’s Bridge President, Molly Brooks. “We recognize the needs of those we serve are very different compared to those of their younger counterparts, and this is precisely why we specialize in providing services to this particular demographic.”

Brooks continued, “Although there are many organizations which provide veterans assistance, our co-founders discovered most of these entities provide assistance to younger veterans. We identified needs very specific to veterans who served in World War II, Korea, and especially the Vietnam eras.”

Hero’s Bridge programs were designed to provide tangible assistance to aging veterans in areas that address social determinants of health.

For example, the Battle Buddy program provides the foundation of care provided in the Hero’s Bridge framework. Younger veterans or veteran spouses, trained in the Community Health Worker (CHW) model, perform a quality of life and military history assessment and then partner with the veteran to ‘bridge’ them to an improved, supported and sustainable quality of life.

Referrals are provided to the other programs of Hero’s Bridge where volunteers help with everyday challenges such as transportation, home maintenance, pet therapy and connection to VA benefits.

“We want to thank them and actually change what their daily experience is,” said Brooks. “We are excited to partner with Capital Caring who is such a leader in advanced illness care. It is no surprise that they are leading the way in recognizing the importance of social determinants of health. Often you must improve circumstances in the home and even in the communities of those with advanced illness to significantly improve clinical outcomes.”

The first Capital Caring Battle Buddy will serve veterans receiving palliative care in the counties of Prince William and Fauquier in Virginia. We look forward to sharing outcomes and expanding the partnership into new areas.

Capital Caring’s mission is to provide the highest quality advanced illness care with dignity, respect and compassion. Since our founding in 1977, we have grown into one of the largest and most experienced nonprofit providers of hospice care, palliative care and bereavement counseling services in the nation. In 2018 alone, we served over 7,000 hospice patients and provided more than $3 million in charity care to those who had nowhere else to turn.

Capital Caring serves families and patients throughout Northern Virginia, as well as Prince George’s County, Maryland, and DC.
www.capitalcaring.org

Contact: Nancy Cook (703) 531-6241

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