#19 "Wounded Warriors and College Accommodations"

On this Memorial Day, we take a moment to reach out to wounded warriors who are thinking about returning to college on the GI Bill. Episode 19 shares insights into college supports and challenges for our veterans with a disability.  You will learn what barriers may happen and how you might handle documentation challenges and limitations you might run into on certain accommodations. 

Transcript

Mickie Hayes  0:00 
If you are a veteran, thank you for your service. On Memorial Day, we take the opportunity to honor and pay tribute to those Americans who died in active military service.

Mickie Hayes  0:13 
I thought I would take this opportunity to remind today's veterans that college and disability services may have many opportunities that to help and support them. So if you are a veteran, or you know a veteran who is thinking about returning to college, but is hesitant because of health or medical related illnesses, please share this podcast with them because they might find some value in some of the information that I'm going to talk about today because sometimes arranging accommodations or our veterans can be a little more complicated than the average student who arrives on campus and needs accommodations.

Mickie Hayes 0:57 
Welcome to Episode 19 of College, Disabilities, and Success "Wounded Warriors and College Accommodations by Mickie Hayes. The opinions in this podcast are my own, but please reach out to your college physician or legal services for additional information.

Mickie Hayes 1:18 
I've worked with veterans in disability services for the entire time that I was at the college, and there are some common factors that I think bear mentioning and one of them is that I found a natural reluctance to seek out extra service and extra support by the veterans who have disabilities, and I think that goes along with the veterans mindset and attitude of toughing it out because that's what they do. And that's what they've been doing all along. Sometimes that works just like for anybody else, and other times, you might need a little bit of extra help and Disability Services is there to provide that for you. In an ideal situation, the veterans representative at the college works with the Disability Services specialist to support students with disabilities that are veterans. I was blessed because I was in a really wonderful situation with an excellent, excellent veteran counselor and the VA office was near my office; we talked regularly and we were able to support each other anytime we needed it. So that was an ideal situation. Not everybody is that lucky to have that great of an ideal situation. But regardless, the veterans representative or the veterans counselor and Disability Services counselor should be in touch with each other as needed. Now, I mentioned the natural reluctance to seek accommodations and to tough it out. And I get that I do understand that. And I came across quite a few issues about confidentiality because veterans were often in situations that are very personal and private, or unspeakably painful, and nobody's business and sometimes talking to disability services about their experiences can prove very daunting. It helps sometimes to remind the veterans that Disability Services at the colleges should be confidential and your documentation and paperwork and everything else should be private. And when you talk to the faculty or anyone else regarding accommodations, you do not need to reveal your disability, the reason that you have these accommodations, just simply that you have them. Now one of the problems that I ran into quite a bit with the veterans was documentation. And the reason documentation is difficult is because sometimes the veterans have to get their hands on military records and paperwork that's not readily available. Unfortunately, the disability services office can't move forward with support unless they have documentation to verify the need. One of the things that I found that most veterans could get easily were their medical case notes through the VA. So if they were in a veteran's hospital, or if they had any kind of medical attention for any reasons, oftentimes the case notes were available. Now the case notes didn't necessarily identify the particular disability. Clearly, it just depends on what's in those case notes and how revealing they are but it was often enough information that we could move forward or at least provide temporary accommodations while the veteran was able to get whatever necessary documentation they needed to get through the VA. So if you are a veteran or you know a veteran who's having trouble getting their hands on appropriate documentation, talk to the your your disability services counselor and find out if the medical case notes will

Mickie Hayes 5:00 
at least help the situation out. In the meantime. A lot of issues that the wounded veterans face deal with very severe conditions. They could be related to physical conditions, missing limbs, battle wounds, but they could also be emotional issues such as PTSD. They could be traumatic brain issues, Traumatic Brain Injuries were quite commonplace from the

Mickie Hayes  5:27 
IEDs, improvised explosive devices, that exploded along the roads and the sound waves in the vibrations from those explosions were sometimes so severe that they literally shook the brain. And so TBI is not an uncommon problem. So veterans sometimes have really significant issues that disability services can accommodate. Now, if you are a veteran going to a disability services office for support, think about the best way your particular situation might be accommodated. For PTSD It may be something as simple as the seat you choose, or the ability to just step out of the room for a few minutes and then come back in depending on the class and depending on the situation. But sometimes the disabilities are so significant that they impact attendance. Now, disability related absences is an accommodation. Any student with a disability, not necessarily only the veterans, but any student with a disability can get disability related absences as an accommodation. Disability related absences cannot fundamentally alter the course, and sometimes if you miss too many classes, it does impact the information from the course. So there's a fine line between how much is too much. And it's a very difficult accommodation to substantiate and justify. And additionally, accommodations cannot be given retro actively. So you can't go back and say I missed so many days because of my illness, now, could you give me disability related absences, it doesn't work that way. So disability related absences is a very complex accommodation. I always had concerns about giving that accommodation unless it was extremely significant, and the situation warranted it. And the only reason I was concerned about it was because disability related absences can sometimes become one of those deep holes that people go round in and they can't get out of because they miss so much in their classes, or they miss so many days in class that there's really no way to make that work up. Colleges have incomplete grades that they can give. But incomplete grades for a class have several parameters attached to them. They generally have some sort of a percentage of work completed or a percentage of work that's left due. And they might have a time constraint, so the work has to be turned in by a certain time. And so what happens is sometimes one semester work leads into another semesters work,and so the person who needs the extended time in the first place now finds they're doubling up on overdue work if the semesters are too close to each other. So that can become a really troublesome situation. So if the disability is such that it is going to affect attendance, that is a definite conversation that the veteran should have not only with the disability services office, but probably with the instructor and with the VA counselor, because it could affect your grades, and it could affect your GI Bill. Sometimes if you can take care of that situation ahead of time, you might be able to resolve the problem a whole lot easier. It's when things pile up and nothing's been done, then it becomes a bigger issue. So the bottom line with any Wounded Warrior is to have conversations with their VA representative and have conversations with Disability Services counselor and find out the best support that can be available to that individual while still keeping within the parameters of the ADA guidelines because it can't as we've said in the past, you can't alter the fundamental nature of the course. So you can't just skip things. And so that's why conversations like this becomes so very important. I have had students on occasion, talk to the professor and see if they could sit in on a different class so they could still have their doctor's appointment or whatever they needed and not miss any class time or sit and talk to the professor and have the professor give them the information that they needed for the class. You'd have to think about creative ways that you might still be able to get the information without impacting the course and the work you have to do. I hope you found today's podcast valuable and The information that I shared worthwhile, our veterans deserve as much support as we can give them and every college is there for the veteran that needs support. If you are a veteran, thank you for your service.

Mickie Hayes 10:13  
Information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the college of your choice to have firsthand information and the most up to date policies and procedures followed for your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational, or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have with regards to legal educational, or medical concerns.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai