 I'm going to invite a specialist up here real quick to do a little presentation. How many of you are familiar with the memorial formerly known as the Mesa? Yes, there we go. It is now available here at Women's Memorial. How many have actually registered for the memorial? Oh, I don't see it. I don't see many more names. If you want to see a hand in your phone, you can go up right now. So I urge you to go ahead and stop your phone. You can register as well as if you can tell them that it's not at any store at the Women's Memorial Gallery. You can just go and take a 10% discount if you want to. I urge you to go ahead and start your work for a special presentation. We need your story. You are very important. And I am very happy that you registered. Because history is being told with your story. And we can't put our whole body in show. When you register your story, it is a legacy. It is history to be told. And we stand on the shoulders of those that come before us. And so I encourage you ladies to tell your story. Register at the table and tell your story. Today I just want to pay a special tribute to Shana Sanders, our new ambassador for her efforts in support of the president of the Military Women's Memorial and her presentation to the D.A.B. New York Department, 100 Anniversary Department Convention. Thank you, Shannon, for all your work. The word behind this is in some cases an actual. We have a lot to cover. So many guests, as you can see to my left and my right here. So I am going to move through some of this stuff pretty quickly. But again, I will be out at the back after the end of this for any questions you may have. If we don't have a chance to get to Q&A at the end of this because we have so much content, please do flag me down. My cards are on the table. I'm happy to answer any questions. And I really do encourage you to reach out to me. I'm new to the Women Veterans Portfolio. So I rely very heavily on what you guys can bring to me. I only have one lived experience and that's my own. So I need to rely on you to share yours with me so I can help bring this information back to D.C. so I can become a better advocate for women veterans. As you may have noticed, I'm not Joy Hulam. I promise you'll hear from her in just a little bit. I don't think, is Joy here? She's very busy. I know I saw Joy in here. But you'll see her. There you go. Give it up for Joy Ala. I'm DAB's Deputy Communications Director. And as I mentioned, I recently taken over our Women Veterans Portfolio for Joy's team. I'm a Marine Corps veteran of Afghanistan. A picture of me there. That's about, you know, what, 15 years ago? Two kids, I don't know, 15, 20 pounds ago. That was a ways ago. But I've also been with DAB and a life member of DAB for about 10 years. Very, very glad to be part of this organization. Love what we do for veterans every single day. And I am very lucky to be following in Joy's footsteps. Oftentimes it feels like I am running at breakneck speed to catch up with Joy because she's just so knowledgeable. She's been doing this for so long. And I'm very lucky to be learning from her. And for those of you who had a chance to hear the Secretary's remarks the other day, Joy truly is, as he said, a quiet giant. She's been doing this for so long. Great job for women veterans. I'd like to give a quick shout out to DAB's Inter-Women Veterans Committee. You know, some of you are here. Hopefully all of you are here. Ginny, Nancy, Amy, Volvo, Linda, Helen, Darren, Greer. You guys help to write my shit sometimes and give me some good feedback on what I need to be doing for women veterans. So thank you all for what you do. Protection team seminar the other day. I went through a number of the women veterans bills that are currently, that have been introduced or reintroduced during the 117th Congress. This is a list of women veterans legislation that we do support. I'm not going to go through the entire list because we just have so much to get through today. But if you are interested in learning more about any of these specific bills and there's some great ones with provisions concerning maternity care, support for MST survivors, advancing mammography services, early detection screens for breast cancer, fertility services, and more, go ahead and check out daud.org slash bptl2021. You can go right to that link and then check out the women veterans portion and get a deeper look at that legislation. On that note though, I'm going to give a little plug to the DAB can here. And I'm going to show you exactly how quick and easy it is for those of you who may not already be familiar with me can to go ahead and support legislation. So go ahead and take a look. I can get my cursor over here. On the left hand side of the screen, I'm going to show you just how fast and easy it is. So pull out your mobile phone. Type in dabcan.org right in the browser. You're going to go ahead and when that loads up, click on the menu when you're take action to view all of our current campaigns. You can scroll along through and pick the one that you'd like to throw your support behind. There would be a pre-drafted letter to your representatives or you can go ahead and write some of your own text. Click submit and there you go. In a few seconds, you have taken action on legislation that supports women veterans. What's that? I can show you right afterwards. We will whip out the phone. We can support some women veterans legislation together. But this will all be on the site as well. You can always review this slide. All of these presentations will be available for you on the back end. And from there, and this is going to play over and over again until I stop talking. From there, once you're finished with that, once you've actually submitted the letter to your representatives, you can click to share it on any of your social media platforms. So not only you, but your friends and relatives back home may can also support the legislation. In cases of legislation, I do want to go ahead and highlight just because I think it's going to be important and relevant to the conversation with our guest later on in the Debra Sampson Act. This comprehensive piece of legislation passed with the law as part of the Johnny Isaacson and David P. Rowe MD Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act. It was passed last year and signed in the law earlier this year. It includes provisions. A number of which came directly from DAV's Women Veterans Reports and Recommendations for both VA health care and the benefits side that pertain to women veterans. This includes things like updates and improvements in health care spaces for women as well as environmental care standards, enhancing staff cultural competency through training, funding, and the addition of women veterans for peer support specialists for women veterans. Elimination of sexual assault and harassment, improvements to military sexual trauma case claims processing, including evaluation of service connection for mental health conditions that are related to MST, and choice of sex for VA medical examiners for C&P exams. And as well as improved data collection broken down by gender, race, and ethnicity, as well as research on barriers to actually accessing health care through VA. I'm going to go ahead and just get this moving. Talk a little bit about the lineup of our guests. We do have a great video between Joy and Representative Julia Brownlee, the Chairwoman of the Congressional Women Veterans Task Force. She was kind enough to share some time with us the other day. They had a great conversation. Ms. Leila Jackson to my right, the Director of the Assault and Harassment Prevention Office at the AHA, also a Marine Corps veteran. On the far side to my left here is Cheryl Rawls, Executive Director for Outreach Transition and Development at BBA and an Army veteran. I left Mr. Stephen Ellis. Mr. Stephen Ellis, the Senior Customer Experience Strategist with BBA. Representative Brownlee wanted to be here with us today, a person we did invite her. Unfortunately, she had to be back in her district this week, but she did, as I mentioned, do a great interview with Joy the other day talking about an update on the Women Veterans Task Force as well as some current legislation. So we'll go ahead and get that kicked off here. Chairwoman Brownlee, thank you for taking time to participate in the Women Veterans Veterans part of DAB's 2021 National Convention. As you know, DAB has been at the forefront of ensuring our nation's women veterans have access to programs and health services to meet their gender-specific needs. And of course, it's always an honor and a pleasure to meet you as a leader on this issue. Join us to discuss key legislative issues and to provide an update on the work of the Congressional Women Veterans Task Force that you chair. Well, thanks, Joy, and thank you so much. I enjoy working with you, and I want all of your members to know what an exceptional advocate you are for your membership, and particularly your workers. And so I just want to thank you for that, and I look forward to our continued relationship. And as you said, we had great success in the 116th Congress. And in that first hearing that I had, I probably should have named the hearing Deborah, Samson, and Beyond, as opposed to Beyond Deborah, Samson, because one of the very first priorities for this year will be to make sure that the entirety of Deborah Samson is initiated via the Filsett's obligations. And then there will be the Deborah Samson bill. We have new issues, 17 Congress, but some of the more obvious contraception, as you know, female and sexist, civilian women, particularly focused on women, families is the fastest growing homeless population in our country right now. And so we need to do more to keep families together. Another bill that I, you know, again, through the task force we can get passed, 1776, if they became pregnant, they had to leave. They were forced to leave the military. So first of all, we don't know how many, second of all, we don't know how they were discharged. And third of all, we want to start within the NIA and to correct things that we're working on. And I'm sure as the Women's Refugees Task Force gets underway, we will be working on issues. One of the issues you just mentioned, a fertility issue, is a child in 1937, the Veterinary Fertility Treatment Act, which DNA supports, and that has built in hands and backs that's for veterans to and until over here. And we have a lot of concerns over the impacts of toxic exposures in other areas that are in here, in military service, reproductive health. In addition, you know, some of the veterans struggle within fertility without ever understanding why. So what is your stand of this legislation moving forward, given the support that we've seen in the recent one? Thank you for that. And I think one very important point about today in fertility and resolving the fertility part of the woman's whole health, and what we have learned and what we know in particular for women, it is very, very difficult to discern and determine if it's service-connected or not. So it should be just part of the overall health services provided to the VA. A woman who has served our country and has put her life on the line for her country should have the access to all of here, and I think infertility is part of that. Another issue, probably on all numbers, of the independent review convention looking into sexual assault in the military. And we were very pleased early on, as soon as the defense secretaries, Secretary Lloyd Osnack-Donah, they both made commitment to making serious changes based on the commission's recommendation, the internal independent review. So from your speech, in Congress and overseeing the implementation of these provisions, in the VA so far, how the upper dispelling, you know, Secretary McDonough should really prioritize the people at V9 immediately to make sure that they can achieve the creation of cultural change that's really long overdue and very... Well, thank you for that question. It's really an important one, and I really do applaud that Secretary Austin, who are making the statements that he has made and said that he wants to take this issue out of the chain of command and in terms of this into the culture of the VA. And it is imperative that we have a zero tolerance on that and it's got to start in the military. I can tell you that Secretary McDonough in terms of sexual harassment and assault, it is a key priority for him. He has assured me that he... This is one of his very first priorities and really wants to institute these rules and regulations that are directed through Debra Sampson into the VA. It's just in total that a woman who perhaps is experiencing military sexual trauma goes to a VA and finds herself being harassed at the VA herself. We have to have policies within the VA that address the system. Chairwoman Brownlee, thank you for taking time to participate in the webinar. Perhaps is experiencing military sexual trauma goes to a VA and finds herself being harassed at the VA herself. We have to have policies within the VA that address the system reporting mechanisms and making clear that this environment is a zero-tolerant environment. Period. Our Secretary, Secretary McDonough is all in on that motion. And now we're focusing on a lot of the latest generation of women veterans. They tend to have some really unique needs that VA have an encounter, things like maternity care, coordination, care for invitations and other more related injuries. And post-deployment now challenges the difference between how genders experience the military experience and how they process that and the transition and what makes it such a special transition. But I also just want to ask you about your thoughts on you know, VA has a large contingent of older women veterans who use the VA and have different hearings than our younger server, you know, younger women veterans. So from what you see do you feel VA is prepared to address the needs not only of our new generation of women veterans but also of older women veterans? To me today because I don't think that the older generation within our veteran community I typically refer to it as the silver tsunami that's coming through veterans coming through the system and we need to support if they can stay home and they want to stay there as long as they possibly can. Sometimes that's just not possible. But if we can provide the supports that they need and the service they will stay at home and we will better serve veterans they will be more satisfied with that service and I think it will cost less where we can use resources into other programs that our senior veterans need. And I think we all know general women usually live longer and so you know, we are up to need those types of services so again, what's next on the rise is the way what are the priority issues you'll stay in their own direction. I am very, very anxious to get back to pre-COVID and those hearings and round tables that we have that are absolutely you know, we've got many issues out there that we probably have not yet been covered so any of your members who are listening right now that have a good legislative idea to pass them on to Joy, Joy will pass them on to me because we are all years in terms of what we need to be doing and what we... Every hearing that we have, every single one of those meetings with us and that is we hear you, we see you and we thank you for your service because we know, we knew before the Task Force came to me that women did not feel hurt they did not feel seen and they rarely get thanked for their service so I just want to be I want to thank all of you out there I want to thank you for your activism and let's let's keep working Thank you so much Thank you to Joy and thanks to Representative Brownlee for their time giving us that for a few brief introductory remarks and then she and I will do a little back and forth Q&A now as the director for the Assault in Harassment Prevention Office, Miss Leila Jackson has been hard at work tackling culture change at VA it's huge, I'll be critical undertaking and I had the pleasure of getting to Leila over the last few months and I greatly appreciate her candor and her passion and her sincere desire to work in collaborative fashion with VSOs with DAE to really bring our feedback to the table in the development of the outreach materials that they are working on to accomplish this incredibly important mission of eliminating sexual assault and harassment of VA So I'll now go ahead and invite Leila up for just a few remarks and then again we'll sit down and I'll pick her brain for some of the questions that I have concerning her mission Thank you so much DAV for inviting me to participate today It is an honor to be here I am a Marine veteran so I feel like I'm at home being around DAV I have worked at the VA for since 2006 20 years in the Marine Corps So this work is personal to me I take it very seriously I'm honored to be leading this work for Veterans Health Administration I am the director of this new office the office is probably a year old it was established right before COVID Undersecretary was away in a White House leadership program and I came back and the time Dr. Stone was the Undersecretary and he asked me, what do you want to do? I just got back from the White House a year of fellowship with the White House what do you want to do? And I said, well I really want to work on something that's important to this administration and that's impactful for veterans He said, well I got the thing for you I need you to help me with Indian harassment and sexual assault in Veterans Health Administration And that sounds like it might be easy but it's not So I'm excited to have the challenge because it's important and I'm really honored to be here today and I'm very thankful to DAB for being so generous with working with VA has always worked with VA but especially with me because I work at VA and work in DC so it's nice to be able to be in touch with what veterans really want to hear first hand what veterans are saying and Ashley and Joy and DAB has done that for me so I will continue to collaborate as you'll hear today So I'll get right to it What are your priorities under your watch and what are some of the biggest challenges that you're facing? You heard the representative she talked about the Deborah Sampson Act and implementing the Deborah Sampson Act but I'll tell you, before Deborah Sampson Act was passed we were already working on ending harassment VA has been working on ending harassment for a long time It was just last year though that this new law firm set up three years ago women's that women's health research arm did a study and about one in four women said they experienced harassment in VA facilities and about 76% of those women said it was because of cat calls, things like hey you're too free to be a veteran you're a woman veteran, you're a brain you're an army, you know hey sexy, hey, you know just those crude things that in the duty, we're in the uniform you want the same respect that no male veterans male service members expect we're all professionals educating, you know what we did a couple years ago was every medical center across VA did qualitative walking tours October of 2019 they did qualitative walking tours we had a number of VSOs participated with the medical center directors and the leadership with the services of the veterans they talked with the employees, they asked them what can we do differently how can we make our VA more welcoming, more safe, more respectful are you experiencing harassment in our facilities and we heard a number of things one of the things that we heard from quite a few men was I didn't even realize I was offensive I didn't know if that was a compliment and so sometimes it's really about educating people sometimes as you heard the representative you know on active duty you can get away with it then you feel like you can get away with it more freely when you go to VA and what we're trying to say is that everyone should be able to walk into a VA medical center any VA facility really and be treated with dignity and respect that's just should be we should not even have to have this conversation and so that's really what I'm trying to do trying to educate folks trying to change the culture so we don't have 76% of women saying they've experienced harassment or sexual assault we don't want a sexual assault is too many and we really want people to say something we see something we really want you to say something so I have a lot on my plate we're trying to improve our policies we're trying to improve our processes we are definitely implementing Debra Sampson Act this year and it's not just veterans health administration it's the department wide effort I work with Cheryl Rawls and VBA it's a collective it's a collective effort across the department so you've mentioned training and we've all been through that training we've all heard that and that brings me to my next question I know that you are working on formulating developing for the veteran organization I know it's already been implemented for employees in the gang which is great and I love I saw some information from a research student talking about before they did the training and after they did the training and the numbers were shocking it was so interesting to see how many people could have been recognized that these things were an issue after taking the training versus how they felt about it beforehand so just complimenting the training alone it brings awareness to the fact that there is an issue it helps people to recognize it so can you tell us a little bit more about what Bisey the training is what's the timing what's the content okay, so just for those you might not be feeling like you're Bisey the training training really is just a tool to empower people to know what to do if you see something and I think that's probably the number one reason why people don't say anything because you're quite sure of what to say or what to do or how to respond so you decide to just build the other way and don't say anything at all you don't want to say the wrong thing you just feel harmful just not doing anything at all and so the Boston Intervention Training it helps persons to respond appropriately to harassment or sexual assault we like to use the four Ds D, one D is direct if you feel comfortable to say something directly to that person you know, excuse me, that's not appropriate you know the person if you say something to the person you want to write to that person a lot of us don't feel comfortable doing that some of us, you know, we don't know him we don't know what state that person's mind is in we don't want to engage with that person we might want to delegate and delegate is okay, delegate is calling talking to the VA police telling a manager, telling someone else you know, delegating is taking it off of you to give to someone else to help you diffuse the situation distract is taking the conversation away so you're there and you see someone being harassed so you can say you can walk up to the person and say do you have the direction to the pharmacy I'm trying to figure out how to get to the pharmacy what you just did was you distracted the whole conversation you given that experience or we're using the word experience instead of victim we're saying that person who's experiencing the harassment now you're giving them a way of escape so they can get away from that situation and then the other thing is document you might not want to do anything you might feel like you're not really quick to do anything so what I'm going to do is I'm going to write down what I'm saying and I'm going to hand it over to a VA employee so they can take care of this because this should not be happening at any VA because when you think about it if you go to Hopkins or to your local hospital in Wisconsin or wherever do you see a lot of where else was that in place do you even expect it and I used to go to Wisconsin because I had the opportunity to be some wonderful Wisconsin Veterans today but even when I'm in D.C. or I'm in Hopkins in Baltimore, I've never experienced any harassment we should not experience it in our VA hospitals so our training I'm through to say that I did get to work with Ashley she gave us some feedback on the monster intervention training that we're developing for Veterans we have 16 million Veterans receiving a VA benefit in the country so that's a lot of Veterans we have 9 million Veterans receiving VA health care so we want to reach the masses what we have done is we're in the process of finalizing online a monster intervention training so you'll be able to go online and take the training at your own pace we're also going to be putting out information written information about monster intervention techniques in case you don't want to go online and take the training we are putting the final touches on the training and we'll be able to have it rolled out in September so we're almost there Fantastic I'm happy to say what I have seen looks great I think it really touches on a number of areas where it is just about ensuring that you're reinforcing that perspective would you want someone to step up for you if you were in that instance I think the answer is resoundingly yes so be present of mine that you're there you're in that situation you're reading the situation and responding I know we're talking about equity training and looking at how conducting equity with veterans there's a working group that's being established and I was curious if you could give us an update where the staff of the working group is in that effort to end harassment and assault what will they be focusing on in the coming months and sort of where that's at right now you're right I guess call for a working group that consists of members from veteran service organizations tribal leaders state and local veterans affairs entities because we need the veteran voice I think Congress we really need it makes us it holds us accountable to doing it so Secretary McDonough is very serious about ending harassment and sexual assault every time I've heard him speak he's talked about it in April Secretary McDonough took the white women 700 leaders across the country virtually 700 leaders across the country including our VSO leaders he's very serious about it he's actually established a larger harassment sexual assault prevention and recourse workgroup, very large workgroup and integrated intent we're moving the VSO's tribal leaders and other veteran service organizations and they'll be helping us figure out how do we get down to local level ending harassment and sexual assault we'll be up here directly from VSO leaders helping us get to the root of ending it and sustaining the eradication of harassment and sexual assault in our facilities they will also help us with how do we get the word out our biggest challenge is really getting the word out to the veterans who's not in these conventions those veterans who are walking to the medical center just day to day and they see someone and they make it their arm or they touch them inappropriately and also it's getting to those 2 million veterans women veterans who are in our country getting our services and letting them know that we want them to become the VA and keep getting their care in VA not to feel that they're going to be harassed or sexual assault and when they walk into our facilities I will say though that one harassment and one assault is too many and we hear from a lot of women veterans they don't experience that and we also hear from male veterans they don't experience that what we do know in the United States that centers for disease control and prevention says that one in four women experience some type of sexual violence in their lifetime one in ten men experience some type of sexual violence in their lifetime so that means that it's happening in our community so if they haven't happened in your unit it's happening in your communities and we're saying it's got stuff at the door frequent to a VA facility so you have one of the veterans coming out of the military or as time has elapsed she's got out of the military wants to go to the VA for the very first time and she has that encounter and they're shut it down and they don't want to come back to me for that reason but there's so much that says the entree so many benefits and services that they are entitled to so definitely I'm so glad to see that Secretary McDonough has been very out front on this issue and I heard from his own wealth many, many times how important this is to him so I'm grateful for his leadership one of the things that I think this is a problem one of the chief complaints that I heard and you were well familiar with this with the procedures and I made a comment the last time we had a round taking discussion Chairman Takano it should be as easy for a VA employee to point you to the direction of the bathroom as it is for them to tell you not to report assault this shouldn't be complicated they should, everybody should know how to do this and veterans should be aware of that knowledge that if something should happen there's a clear reporting chain so can you tell me how VA is working to improve reporting procedures yes so the law actually has a couple of clear directions in it one of the things that it says is that every facility will have prominent signage in our facilities designated who are the points of contact for harassment and sexual assault so first of all we are educating staff every day we spend a lot of time educating staff but sometimes we just don't get it right so what we're trying to do is we're going to have to find that I think in October we will have prominent signage in every November I should say November 15 I think is our goal to have permanent prominent signage in every VA facility that says who the designated points of contact are so for a veterans health administration of the medical centers our leaders should have designated the patient advocates as the points of contact so that's to say that if I've never been into a VA medical center like I haven't been in a template VA and I've been with the VA facility physically here if I walk in there and I've been harassed then I'll know all the prominent signage and I'll tell me to either go to the VA police or go to the patient advocate most people know to go to the patient advocate even in a Sicilian law school people go to the patient advocate so they know that's a good point of contact I want you to know though that the patient advocate should not be over the place as you go if you go to your primary care provider if you go to a women veterans program manager you know we are really working hard to educate staff so they will know where to see you too but what we're saying is if all of that fails the patient advocates are going to be trained to make sure that the veteran who experiences harassment veteran visitor volunteer, caregiver who experiences harassment facility will know what to do we have developed training the training we've rolled out this year they'll know what to do we've used for them to handle harassment complaints but they handle complaints all the time so they are great at handling complaints so that is the one thing that we're going to do the other thing we're doing yet we'll be having to take some questions afterwards if we could I can't stand here now the state is very good one very simple thing should happen staff in all the clinics when their new height should be trained when they look at the eye of the veteran and you put your card down there and they look you again and you can say okay where is we are at a primary care clinic and there's no mail but are you going to go regular? but what if I I am going to work with any harassment and sexual assault but I will tell you I know Dr. Patty Hayes the chief of women's health has been here a long time and I know that there are working groups right now the women's modernization work groups that are diligently working on educating staff because you just made a very good point a 20 year old so that means that 20 year old person is uninformed you know they just don't know but that's why we have to continue to educate staff there's so many things going on thank you, thank you for that so one of the things that VA recently has done is we sort of saw the women's some of the veterans some of them aren't here today they have a son and every VA medical center that says I am not invisible and you see women veterans pictures because sometimes it's just ignorance they just don't know I didn't even know when I joined the brain board the only veteran I knew I didn't know any of the veterans and so sometimes it's really just not knowing so now every VA medical center has images of women veterans in their medical centers so now you can see faces that are women so that's one of the soul I had to do our ribbon campaign our National Commander and you guys may have seen on social media the magazine, Adjutant Burgess has been offering on this messaging as well and that starts with each and every one of us and we've really drilled that out and been very supportive of this campaign but VSOs play a role every single one of us play a role in ending harassment and changing the culture at VA it is our VA we are the ones in those hallways we are the ones in those waiting rooms we all play a role in how this shapes up so I'm curious to hear a little bit more from you Lila on what veterans with VSOs can do themselves in partner back culture changing the VA well I'm excited about the white group so as I mentioned earlier one in four women and one in 10 men experienced harassment sexual assault that means that either I have experienced harassment or if I haven't I'll probably know someone that's maybe the person sitting next to me so it's really a personal commitment to end harassment and sexual assault in the way that you can do it whether it's calling it out whether you're not committing it taking a personal stance so VA about a year ago launched a white ribbon VA effort and it's just a simple pledge where you make an individual commitment to never excuse never commit and to also never stay silent about ending harassment sexual assault or domestic violence against others but it's really a powerful movement white ribbon has been around since 1991 it's started in Canada now it's an international movement we've had thousands and thousands of folks probably many of you who have taken the white ribbon VA pledge it just really starts with me so it's more than this white ribbon is really an individual commitment to stamp it out to stand up to stop harassment wherever we are in our VA in our communities it's really just a no to it and I know our folks from Wisconsin are well familiar with this pledge there we were very proudly showing you the white ribbon earlier I'm going to give everybody a chance to take the pledge and leave this right here but before we do I want to give you an opportunity to give any final thoughts any other messages that you'd like for us to hear yes I want to just thank the young lady for the comment and also just we really want your comments I looked in DC I have a veteran so I have some ideas of my own but we really want to hear from women veterans especially we want to know what things that we can do better I think that's really brilliant one point I was going to make about the recording I just really want to quickly say that I know I talked about the designated points but I do want people to have no wrong nor they want to reward harassment we want everyone to feel safe and one thing that would really help me is telling your friends about our stance about ending harassment but then also telling other women veterans that we want them to come back to VA and invite their sister veterans to come to VA and then the last thing to say about the recording is we are a big system and so we're working on IT issues and one of the things that we really want to do we hope to have and soon we don't know when but we're actively working with our information technology folks that if you are at the Meadow Center and let's say that you harass and you're in a way to your appointment you just don't have time to deal with that you leave and you go home and then you're calling me like 20 miles back to VA to tell somebody how do I tell them and so what we're really working on is to submit their complaint online that is our goal so hopefully this time next year I'll be able to talk about that because that is something that's very important where people should be in convenience we want people to go just like you can go to the OIG right now you can do that you can go to the OIG's website and report the complaint we would like you to be able to go to our website and submit a complaint if that happens to you we know what has ever happened we really want everyone to feel safe and everybody in Meadow Center but in the event that it does happen we want you to be able to report it well we look forward to those updates Leila I'm sure I would be in touch hopefully we'll learn more soon are you ready for the pledge? I would love to do that we have rivets outside so you'll get a ribbon and these are metal rivets we do have them outside and we also have a little part because I'm saying this here you have a lot of information you're taking in today but we want you to remember the pledge it's one very simple sentence but for those of you who will be willing I would love you to take the pledge along with me if you'd stand and just raise your right hand that would be pretty awesome and we have a pledge on the screen as well so I say your name make sure everybody knows where they can go to get the pledge and it's on Leila's website as well so if somebody wasn't here I'd like to go ahead and bring up our next guest Ms. Cheryl Rawls and she'll introduce Mr. Ellis who she's wrapped up her presentation to cover down on BBA's outreach to women veterans what they're doing not just to reach out to them but I think most importantly to listen and to learn so Ms. Rawls, as I mentioned is an Army veteran she helps to overseas I think arguably one of the most important aspects of military service and that's transitioned back into the civilian world through the Transition Assistance Program I had a chance to listen in on their journey a few weeks ago in a Center for Women Veterans Department presentation and I loved it so much that I would ask them to come here and support me as well so I hope you all get as much out of this as I did ladies and gentlemen Ms. Rawls, how are you? Before I invite you out to everybody, the collaboration is really you know, I'm just an athlete I think I'm going to be working for her real soon Outreach, Transition and Economic Development for BBA and that is outreach all over that is Transition 56 region offices as a BDD program as the overseeing military service coordinator you name it about any information out there somehow or another it comes in this office seeing you try to make it happen We've got a couple things we want to talk to you about these weird engaged stories but I do want you to know that a partnership with all the administrations is really strong so it's way though talking about what's happening here in BHA she calls me all the time and says hey BBA you're in my unit yes we are, we are in 100% Additionally I do serve on that sub council for preventing sexual harassment and assault and I just finished up a 120 days with the force which is inclusion diversity, equity and access together there are as we like to say on the street way too much going on and that is my door because mom you're doing too much and right now we can say we are not doing enough we just started talking about what we need to do so know that we are getting together getting our act together and getting the few to get it done alright so and two he does not like people messing with his wife he gives us that she is the first we need you to sit back down we are going to be engaged so it takes all of us and it takes everybody to recognize that and some of you are as we like to always have been for hours setting things up together with Steven and then there's going to be a call for action and I ask you to do some stuff because we need some help we just can't get this done we do a reaction every thing you might not know we are enriching out in the community yes we are it's always looking to partner we are always looking to partner with the states we are always a partner to get the information out there we've made the transition also to call our one of our programs we identify that as veteran readiness in employment because we want to be able to connect with the employers who are putting together veteran readiness programs so employers will be able to say aha this is what we are doing and then you may take note that we are working with the families because as the person who has oversight of the transition not just the veterans and when we start talking about economic development there are two incomes there's one income that's generated to take a major hit because they are going on to the economy and all of those things are no longer to understand that you cannot think that you are going to go out there and be just as competitive we have to talk to the entire family so let's drill let's drill down to things that we should know these are VBA benefits yet to us you know people need to be connected to them whether they are currently serving in a whether they have just begun to think about transition so what have we been doing we'll talk to you a little bit about outreach 56 regional offices collaborating with VHA but I wanted to share with you some of the data now it looks good lots of numbers but you should know during COVID we pivoted virtually and began to talk to our electronically and to process claims to the electronic we haven't missed a beat in processing claims you know what we missed a beat on did people to exams where we missed a beat now you know figuring out what are people going to do while we are trying to get people to go to their exams that's my first ask we've worked to make sure the environment is safe we've already heard what we are doing as far as the Debra Sanchez Act you can choose select your agenda of your provider if you are an MSD survivor but the first step is knowing you got to get to that exact so we've been putting the word out and we've been making sure that people know you see that number up there for events just count for women how do I notice because I'm the one that puts the statistics together and I'm the one that makes the regional offices report on what they're doing and I'm the one that's reporting that so we know we can do more yeah this is how we're doing with women connecting to those benefits great statistics but again when you consider that we are at anywhere for 15-18% of the military the current military you can still see that we are grossly underrepresented in getting connected to benefits because not everybody can be as hefty as I am to point out to people I am the better and we have to speak for those people also so you're a second call for those and you do have some work to do they are natural time positions like they are counterparts in hospitals we're going to have to do some things there to make sure that they have the time and the tools that second piece there speaks to a program that we developed for transitioning women actually our sister organization VHA developed a program and packaged it up for VBA to deliver in the transition space but there are that we do that you know I've had to sit at the table with an organization and I had to remind people everybody is not going to be comfortable talking about their body just transitioning women who can talk about their needs because if you want to sit down with me and talk anything we're on to do that so we had to create something for women to have that you know most of us have been around because I've been with VBA for 26 years we all know that so we have used to be the Cadillac program I think you did everything I think we can do some things you give us this, you give us that now when you start looking at everything in the forever GI bill there's no way anybody can say dare you want to go to two year fine you want to do trade school fine you want to do it, it's there and we have got to get that word out but we'll get you some questions I'm going to ask you because I'm always telling people you can't build anything that the people don't want you need to understand what everyone needs organizations are better than experience that they are renowned if you want because you know if you ask me what I'm up for dinner I will tell you you put food on the table so you got to ask so we went out as normal veterans we were working this project in the last 18 months and it's truly my pleasure to bring you up here to talk to you about the results alright Steven she was a tag along but actually I'm tagged along she is a dynamic person so thank you Ashley for this opportunity new service and so I understand when things are sealed because my wife at the time turned to say no because she is the one that is serving this country so I thank all of you for your support I truly do my name is Steven Ellis and I'm a senior customer experience strategist and I want to talk to you just a little bit about a project that we've been working on and some of the things that have come out of it we have developed this with women's veterans just talking about women just as yourself and helping us to understand what you're going for here this is an initiative that VBA undertook to understand the benefits of one of that this project it gave us a journey map five women veteran personas insight by insight report which gave us five different insights and eight key findings the key takeaways that came out of as the director all said we use human centered design as a methodology and we work with this these insights with the women veterans program from VHA to VBA we're also sharing things with our partners at DOD and we're working with them and the record Rawls team specifically directed for women veterans the record Rawls says she did that opportunity it gave us a chance to talk to women veterans because we know this population and so as I stated the approach we use was human centered design methodology and what is human centered design it's the framework for problem solving it builds those solutions and it gives the human perspective of talking to each and every individual and it's going to it helps us to understand the veterans experience so again like I said as you can see here and I know it's very small my eyesight is hurting but trust me we want it to be up on our sites we have our journey map those personas and the insight now as the record Rawls said this was an 18 month endeavor that we came through and so we started out and we were going to be doing our interviews in person but as you all know that has affected COVID affected us all and so we had to change how we were going to do this and with doing this we had to move to a virtual environment as we had to with everything now and so we didn't lose anything or nothing changed but we gained even more so we interviewed a total of 7 6 veterans through this process 64 were women but we also interviewed 12 men because we want an overall perspective of men and women this isn't women's veterans journey map but we know some of our men can give a perspective of how they have seen women treating throughout their service so a journey map what's the purpose of a journey journey maps are customer-centric approach to evaluate the path of what we're trying to see and I know you can't see it here but with a journey map I like to say there are bright spots and pain points right and so bright spots that they're annotated on there they are they are sunshines, razor sunshines right but again remember I said we have pain points also and pain points are those lightning bolts that you see and that's where we're looking at to find out where are those pain points what are our veterans experience what are our women veterans experiencing for those pain points because at VBA we want to make sure everyone is inclusive not only VBA but the whole we're looking we want to make sure we so with that there are some moments that map and I'm going to touch on just a couple of them here so a bright spot that came out was joining the service a women veteran she said joining the service and the direct quote was I was looked up to as a leader I had a responsibility and I would think that one could understand that's all of you you've been looked up to as leaders in the military and that was a bright spot that came out of that for this veteran that we spoke with but again like I said we talk about pain points and those are those lightning bolts those are those things that we want to find that are going to stand out so another moment that's on this journey map is transitioning out of the military choosing or having to leave and so the pain point that came out of this was leaving because of arrest and discrimination and a male dominated fear and so what came out of that is that men are resistant to following orders from a woman and the veteran said I probably would have never left if that was the case and you heard Layla talk about that and how we look at this and so this is something that we are working to change and we're hearing it first hand and this is coming out in our interviews with our veterans and so as you all just took that pledge it's something that we that is beneficial for us all we all can work together with it another bright spot that came out of course was growing and finding a purpose focusing on what I am and so the quote that came from that veteran says at first I was on the fence about going into a different field but they came in and they talked to a vocational counselor and the counselor gave them some ideas and they helped them to find a different perspective that's beneficial that's VBA and VA working for the veteran that's VA and VBA working for you because we know if you are in a field that's going to benefit you it's going to make you a happier person it's going to give you a happier life and it's going to transition out for you and your family but again like I said it's not all about the bright spots those pain points are the things that we're looking for another pain point that came out was gaining stability and the veteran stated relocating for my locals and she said not realizing I was eligible for a VA home I didn't even realize I could buy a home that's a problem that's an issue that we have to take on because we have to get your benefits out there and help you to understand what your benefits about this veteran is saying I didn't know I could buy a home a veteran should not come out of saying the service saying when they come out they should know everything that's there and so that's what we're working here to be able to do that's what we're working here and director Rawls and the outreach team those are the things they're getting out we're working in different facets to get this information out and to make sure you know whether it's through TAP whether it's you're going into a regional office whether you're going into the hospital it's part of our eye care model integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect, and access all that is what we're about and that's what we're trying to stay up for so like I said that's just a brief synopsis of the journey we also have personas and persona profiles are very big persona profiles are fictional characters they are interviews that we actually pay that we gain that information from, rather I should say and we put it together to develop a persona and as director Rawls said you will be able to see some of these personas within yourself as you look to your left or as you look to your right or people that you work with or that you serve with you will be able to understand and see some of these personas and I will go through all of the personas but I will touch on just a couple of them because they are very beneficial for us so as you can see we have well-off Wanda advocate Anita and moving on so let's start with well-off Wanda after a full and fulfilling career as a high ranking service member Wanda retired from the military life and is proud to be a veteran although she did not experience any discrimination she saw it since she's retired Wanda has went on to lead a very successful civilian career we all know Wanda Wanda is there I can introduce you to a person that is identified with Wanda right now I have the record of all she is the person that identifies with well-off Wanda we know these right we all know those people that have been able to persevere and have great careers throughout the military and come out and have great civilian careers also but Wanda is not the only person like I said advocate Anita during Anita's military career Anita achieved success and was promoted into leadership but was forced to leave because of a medical emergency a medical disorder sooner than she wanted to that's someone we know also it's our coworker, it's our friend it's our name our personas are based upon again fictional characters but these were how these were developed were part of the 74 interviews that we did and so again as we look at these personas these are individuals that we can identify with I want to talk about one more persona and that's untrusting Ouma Ouma entered the military she had high hopes to retire some day after a long successful career but instead was medically discharged after being injured throughout her time in the military Ouma faced traumatic a traumatic moment when I should say she had traumatic moments that were based upon abuse and a mystery again ladies and gentlemen we know these personas we know these people these are individuals that we talk to on a daily basis and so when we have these people that we come in contact with we want to make sure we get them directed to the appropriate service you heard Layla talking about the Debra Saps and acting different things of that nature these are things that are taking place that are going to benefit untrusting Ouma but also hesitant hype well-off wander moving on back our situations and these are things that are going to happen and that are going to be in place forever all of our veterans are going to be better off for this so as I stated we had some insights and some key findings excuse me and insights they are based on the decisions while all women veterans I should say may not experience every insight every insight represents a major pattern that was heard in our interview sessions insights are written in direct language they are universal truths so when we are sitting in those interviews and we're talking to those veterans these are their words and this is what we're hearing from so an insight that came out was connected to other veterans with similar backgrounds women veterans feel more comfortable connecting with women veterans that are like bypass that at all again women veterans are more comfortable with veterans that are like a quote, a red quote that came out later ideally women veterans could not find a total place where they feel veterans are visible to easily connect with other people or veterans themselves right so when we go to those women clinics it's about women it's not about men and women it's about women and so making that connection is very important another insight that came out was hiding trauma to remain strong that's a strong that's a very strong insight during their time in the military women veterans learned how to be independent and strong which enhanced their intention to detail and ability to get through stressful situations women veterans shouldn't have to hide their trauma that shouldn't happen that should not be the case but in our interviews that came out that was very important because yes you're being strong and yes you're being tough but you should have to hide that based upon anything women veterans they ask because they want an empathetic ear they want that listening board to be able to talk to and so it's important that we have that for them again some key findings that came out of this being an employee means being part of a veteran community again in our interviews we did interview some VA employees and so they said working as a VA employee provides access to a unique veteran community that eases the line of transition because of similar situations I will say working at the VA and working with my counterparts and my colleagues that are there they have a sisterhood or brotherhood that I am not part of and I respect that because again as I said I have a veteran every day that I support and work and also at home and so I understand that I have been talking with her and seeing the things that she talks about knowing the things she talks about it gives me some understanding of what goes on but again I can't sit in her shoes because I did not serve another key finding was facing discrimination beyond gender while many women face bias in the military for their gender while dealing with discrimination for their race and sexual orientation is an additional burden we know this is out there and we are looking to change this and when our women veterans are serving this country they should not feel any different than their male counterparts but we are not going to be lost over that and say that it does not happen we know that it happens but we have the opportunity and the chance to make a difference with it and so again as Leila gave the pledge up here let's start there from our perspective and let's build that culture because discrimination sexual or any kind should not be tolerated and we should all stand here so we need your help it's all about engagement communication communication and continue with speak back engaging when you're in your offices with those veterans and talking with them keeping them engaged I know this happens with DAV because as I worked in a regional office DAV the DAV office was always there and always talking to their veterans and keeping things going but the engagement is going to start with our outreach programs as Director Ross spoke about we're definitely going to be a part of this when you want to because this is a collaborative effort and it's a team that's going to work together with this communication making sure that we are communicating what's going on we hear things, we know things let's share these things let's make sure everyone is talking about again like I said it's part of that I care aspect of the VA and it's something that we buy into and last but not least your continuous feedback we want your feedback, we want to hear you Director Ross as she said if Ashley has to put her over there in the corner she's going to take questions but she's also going to give some questions and I'll be sitting by her side if she won't let me go no more but I'll be taking questions with her ladies and gentlemen I want to thank you for your time today again I want to thank you for inviting me to speak at your National Congress and again I want to thank all of you for your service it was so interesting to be able to look through some of those you really looked into the details they really really did right off the bat I'm at a lot of a point that there are a lot of shared experiences in the women veterans journey that are unique to us and you see those reflected in the judgment and the personas and I think one of the most important things that really resonated with me is the validation that those experiences are real and that they are unique and that they are shared they might not be shared by every single one of us but I think a lot of us for many years are feeling like that we are not recognized as a veteran and I can freely admit too I grew to a wonderful man he's a police officer but he's not a veteran we still get to nail talking about our VA level that's interesting you know I get it we want to be validated for our service we want to hear that validation I think to get it directly with VA is fantastic I think they're doing a great job there's work to do there's always going to be work to do but I truly appreciate everything that all of you are doing to make that happen so thank you all and I think we've gotten some marching orders here too we're all going to go back home to a different place we are spread out across all 50 states I've met a couple of people here from Hawaii I don't know why they're coming here they're just all in there I don't know I don't know what the 20-24 day convention seeing our members in different communities we need to take this information back home to them we need to take all this information knowledge back home to them make sure that they understand what VA is able to do for them make sure that they're getting them connected to people that they need to get connected and that we're standing up for ourselves and for others sometimes we know people that are going to stand up for themselves and we have an obligation to do that as well and we all want to see each other succeed so I'm going to wrap it up there