The Veteran Supported Education Service Treatment Manual: VetSEd

Additional Training Materials
VetSEd supervisors should ensure that all peer VetSEd providers have completed their
local facility‘s suicide prevention training. In addition, each VA has a Suicide Prevention
Coordinator, who can provide consultation on Veteran safety planning. Lastly, the
Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Peer Specialist Training Manual (U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs, 2010) contains an informative chapter on managing crisis and
emergency situations that can be useful for VetSEd supervisors and peer providers to
review and discuss. An electronic copy of the training manual is available free of charge.
Your facility‘s Local Recovery Coordinator should have access to the training manual.
F. Ensuring Fidelity to the VetSEd Treatment Model
Included in Appendix L is a fidelity measure for VetSEd that can be used for evaluation
purposes and future research. It is composed of over forty items in the five key domains
of VetSEd practice, i.e., Choose, Get, Keep, Engaging Key Players, and Other Core
Competencies. These can be completed by record review and interviews by impartial
evaluators. Fidelity to the VetSEd treatment model can also be ensured when VetSEd
supervisors and peer providers prioritize discussions about the application of VetSEd
interventions to individual Veterans receiving VetSEd services. Such discussions help
peer VetSEd providers frame their interventions and minimize the chance of diverging
substantially from the VetSEd treatment approach.
For example, a Veteran may suggest that a meeting focus on problems s/he is having
securing a car loan, when the peer VetSEd provider may want to focus on the Veteran‘s
poor mid-term grades and risk for academic probation. The role of the supervisor in this
case would be to help the peer VetSEd provider devise an intervention that would touch
on the Veteran‘s car loan concern while linking it, and possibly other factors, to
Veteran‘s poor mid-term grades and academic concerns. In short, VetSEd supervisors
should partner with peer VetSEd providers to work in ways that relate to the Supported
Education Choose, Get, Keep framework. VetSEd supervisors can track peer VetSEd
providers‘ adherence to the VetSEd model via the VetSEd fidelity provided in Appendix
L.
The VetSEd Fidelity Index in Appendix L should be given to the Veteran at the start of
the service. The index serves a number of purposes. It allows the Veteran to know what
the entire process of the program entails. It also helps the Veteran understand the range of
options provided by the program. The index will assist the Veteran to stay on track with
the steps of the program. The use of the index also gives the Veteran a visual
representation of the progress that s/he has made over time. The peer VetSEd provider
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