The core purpose of Veterans Connect @ the Library is to connect Veterans with their benefits so that more Veterans are using the benefits they earned. Each Veteran's need is different, and connecting Veterans with their benefits is done one-by-one. With 10,300 interactions, Volunteers, VA Work-Study students, and staff helped Veterans and their families learn about education, employment, housing, health benefits, burial benefits, etc. Referrals are made to the County Veteran Service Offices and other organizations such as the federal VA. Comment cards turned in by Veterans and family members provide an assessment of this activity. See the narrative report for a summary of the information from the comment cards.

Because the work is done one-by-one and requires time and specialized knowledge, consultation was provided by CalVet trained volunteers and VA Work-Study students. Volunteers contributed 13,553 hours, and VA Work-Study students 2,786 hours. VA Work Study student hours are not counted in federal reports, but reported here because of their contribution in terms of their recent experiences as active duty military and their networking.

Details on VetNow, which provides career and academic assistance for veterans and their families in 9 of the Vets Connect grant libraries, are reported on the Content activity page.

One of the  activities requested by CalVet is to establish an ongoing relationship with CalVet by having Veterans register electronically at my CalVet. 146 registrations indicated a library as their referral organization.

Another goal is to connect Veterans and their families to library resources; no specific count is kept on this data.

The California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) was the Statewide formal partner for the grant and provided consultation at two levels. The Director of CalVet's Transition Assistance was the liaison at CalVet for the two grant managers and helped interpret trends in needs and services, provided answers to specific questions, reviewed the grant application, and oversaw the 8 regional Local Interagency Network Coordinators(LINCS). To ensure strategic alignment with CalVet's outreach objectives, the 8 LINCS made visits to, answered emails and phone calls, and trained staff and volunteers at Veteran Resource Center (VRCs) in their regions.

CalVet provided a half day of in person training at 4workshops. See the Activity Sheet on Instruction Program for details and outcomes.

Project managers visited each of the 9 new sites. Project managers maintained contact with all sites via email, phone calls, etc. General information was shared via two list serves, one for staff at all VRCS and one for staff, volunteers, and VA Work Study students who sign up. In order to share additional information about the project, a monthly project newsletter for staff, volunteers and work-study was implemented in January 2019. Most information was provided directly to specific Veteran Resource Centers via emails and phone calls. A trend this year was an increase in the number of one-on-one training provided to staff at VRCS, which have long participated in the program, but have new staff assigned to oversee the VRC.

Project Consultants updated and maintained a robust website for staff, volunteers, VA Work-Study students, and other interested parties.https://calibrariesforveterans.org/. 20,182 website page views and 8,273 sessions with 5,320 users. A new webinar Veterans and Mental Health was delivered on April 25, 2019.

Since the number of Veteran and Veteran families served is directly proportional to the number of volunteers and/or Work Study Students staffing the VRCs, recruitment and retention of volunteers is a critical facet of the program. Two activities were included in this grant. A consultant was hired to determine the elements of programs with strong volunteer recruitment and retention. In Phase I the consultant researched the elements of a strong volunteer program with 7 participating libraries. Phase II had two parts. In the first part 2 webinars (for the first seven libraries) on Volunteer Recruitment and Retention were completed. The second part of Phase II was an interactive workshop at the 4 Spring Workshop. The consultant's work reinforced another grant activity which was to promote the use of Veteran Work-Study. Training on setting up a Veteran Work Study program was provided at the four Workshops.

The final consultation activity was to implement technology provided by Unite Us to measure referrals and outcomes at other agencies serving veterans. This project was formally ended in December 2018 when it became apparent--after a great deal of effort by the vendor and project managers--that the library was not the right key agency to lead this project; rather the work should be done locally by County Veteran Service Officers or a local coalition of Veteran agencies. Funds originally budgeted for this activity were reallocated to open new sites.

Regarding 6 below: total number of consultation/reference transactions is not kept by CalVet or Veterans Connect @ the Library consultants

Four regional annual Workshops were held in Fresno, Pleasanton, Fontana, and Huntington Beach. These were joint workshops with grant partner, California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet). The Local Interagency Network Coordinator (LINC) and CalTAP (California Transitional Assistance Program) staff covered benefits, how to research benefits and the curriculum for CalTAP, a program designed to inform and connect Veterans of all eras to their earned federal and state benefits as well as provide continued support and assistance as their needs change over time through five unique pathways.

At lunch time, a review was made of the California Center for the Book's grant, Community Conversations with Veterans. This grant's focus provided programming content for approved sites, and enhanced the quality of local library programming.

In the afternoon, a workshop on volunteer recruitment and retention was given by consultant Barbara Wolfe. For more detail, see the Consultation Report Form.

Each workshop wrapped up with a review of grant resources including free grant PSAs, the importance of participating in local coalitions and an explanation of how to obtain VA Work Study students to increase the number of hours each Veteran Resource Center could be open.

A copy of the workshop agenda is attached as a part of the final narrative report.