A Schuylkill County nonprofit human services organization wants to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.

Clinical Outcomes Group of Pottsville has applied for a grant through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide services to veterans, including those who are inmates in the county jail.Clinical Outcomes Executive Director Alicia Fleischut believes the numbers of veterans who are facing PTSD and substance abuse are rising."Many of our veterans return home injured and are given prescribed medication that soon becomes another problem they have to deal with," she said."Also, often these veterans have seen combat situations and have been required to fight in war zones, and then are supposed to come home and 'live normal.' Many can't, or just do not know how, and resources are limited for not only these individuals but many individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues."Schuylkill County prison Warden Eugene Berdanier said he fully supports Clinical Outcome's efforts. The organization provides grant-funded drug and alcohol programs for inmates."Clinical Outcomes is very proactive in looking at whatever is available that we can participate in to increase services," he said. "This is not only for inmates, but for the community. We don't have a high population of veterans in the jail, but this is for anyone who would benefit from it."The organization does not yet know how much its grant would be, providing one is awarded."We want to have a project director/case manager who will work directly with the prison and probation initially to begin identifying veterans for the program," Fleischut said. "This individual will then begin linking the veterans toward appropriate programs to meet their needs."COGI has a therapist that is trained in working with individuals with trauma, so these individuals will be assigned to a specific group with this therapist. The person we will hire for the project director/case manager position is a retired veteran who has extensive deployment and training in veterans services and PTSD/Critical Incidents," she said.Clinical Outcomes' work in helping people struggling with drug and alcohol issues made them aware of veterans' problems."To my knowledge there are no programs specific to veterans with PTSD and substance abuse in Schuylkill County," Fleischut said. "However, as an agency we have dealt with these issues as they arise within our D&A program. Some of the problem areas that have often occurred with these (drug and alcohol treatment) individuals is that they have difficulty navigating a confusing system, lack of health insurance as they are not eligible for veteran's benefits, drop out of services and there is no one to follow up with the veterans to ensure that their needs are being met. In realizing that this occurs for many of our clients, the veterans' population has a different set of problems, especially with PTSD.Fleischut said she and her staff have seen the need for substance abuse/PTSD programs from seeing this "population over the years struggle and drop out of services."The majority of Clinical Outcomes clients have both substance abuse and mental health issues, she said.