What an American Heroes Return program is or is not:

• It is Active Duty and Veteran Transition and Housing Support
   
• It is not clinical therapeutic services. It is housing and living support for those engaged in those services.
   
• It is programming that is developmental in nature, utilizing the  time tested challenge and support technique - providing participants with tasks, responsibilities, and opportunities while providing the support necessary to maximize their success and program benefit.
   
• It is not intended to conflict with, work against, undermine, nor diminish the work of the Department of Defense or Veteran's Administration or other governmental agencies and organizations who are tasked with supporting active duty, reserve, and military veterans. It is intended to support their activities.
   
• It is cutting edge, out-of-the-box solutions to supporting the active duty military and veterans in transition, including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recovery and the institutional support process.

The Phased Rural Living Environment
unique to AHR

Of particular interest to AHR is the supportive living environment for the PTSD outpatient. It is counter-productive to place a veteran who is dealing with PTSD recovery in to shelters and other living options designed for and populated with those recovering from drug addiction, managing mental psychosis, and a range of other issues. And a PTSD recovering veteran who attempts to live at home with family can be just as detrimental, not only to the veteran but to the entire family.

Our solution is to use a Phased Living Environment (PLE). PLE's are designed in such a way as to accomplish the following:

• Access the isolating and/or sensitivity factor of a PTSD recovering veteran
• Place the veteran into the living environment phase appropriate for that level
• Challenge a progressive movement towards a recovery level of living environment
• Move the veteran to the progressively higher intensity, less protective environment
• Establish point of recovery benchmarks and move the veteran off of the program

Living Environment Phases Explained
When we AHR refers to "living environment levels," the point of difference in these levels of living environment is best understood by a short, simple review of what makes PTSD so debilitative for many veterans. For a veteran in PTSD recovery, factors that often result in behavioral responses include:

• Familiarity with surroundings
• Multi-sensation activity at levels beyond the veterans comfort threshold
• Environmental triggers, typically unexpected or unrecognizable sounds and actions

Controlling for these factors allows for progressive movement towards more activity that triggers, in conjunction with professional treatment and peer mentoring and support, is a unique and effective way in which to support PTSD recovery.

Partnering
AHR is reaching out to military and civilian organizations and partnering where appropriate to ensure we are providing the best range of services to our men and women coming back from war.

A great program is built on strong ties and networking to others who also have the veteran's best interest in mind and provide services to compliment ours, and ours to compliment theirs.