How Easterseals MORC Supports Veterans’ Mental Health

Zac, a U.S. Navy veteran, expresses himself through baking, allowing him to channel his creativity and find confidence in his abilities once again. Through veteran support at Easterseals MORC, he was able to better understand his needs and find ways to manage his mental health. 

“Baking is not just a passion for me. It’s a therapy,” Zac says. “Easterseals was instrumental in getting me centered.”

After returning home from a difficult service, Zac found himself adrift, unsure of who he could trust. Eventually, people in his life brought him to Easterseals MORC. There, he was able to get the help he needed with the aid of therapist Dr. Patrice Duquette.

Dr. Duquette has worked with many veterans who struggle after leaving the service. She notes that many don’t receive the support they need while serving. Her focus on veterans began after a friend returned home with PTSD and needed care—an experience that shaped her career and ultimately brought her to Easterseals.

According to Dr. Duquette, even when emerging from traumatic situations, the general public expects service members to be stable. They are often expected to not just readjust to a totally different way of living, but to instantly smooth over any mental health issues. This leads to further alienation and conflict, making it harder for veterans to open up to the people around them. Oftentimes, veterans turn to self-medication.

This is where psychiatric services like those offered by Easterseals can be a life-saver.

Easterseals MORC offers a range of mental health services tailored to veterans and their families. The STRONG Families program, for example, helps service members and veterans build skills alongside their families, giving everyone tools to support one another. For families navigating deployment and reintegration, this support can make the transition to civilian life smoother.

For situations in need of critical support, Easterseals MORC provides Urgent Care for non-emergency mental health crises. Through this support, anyone in crisis can find stability through solution-focused counseling. This then leads into the foundation of longer-term support, through wellness assessments, safety-planning, and connection to other resources. The program center also provides a quiet and safe place to decompress.

As a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center (CCBHC), Easterseals MORC offers care to anyone who needs it, regardless of ability to pay. People with mental illness often struggle to integrate into the workforce without assistance, and in many cases that assistance is locked behind expensive paywalls, creating barriers to care. CCBHCs help break those barriers, enabling an individual’s full potential to engage in the community. 

Dr. Duquette describes herself as “a therapist first,” using talk therapy as the foundation of care. Medication plays an important role, but as she explains, part of her job is finding the right support so people can fully engage in therapy and build the skills they need for daily life.

The mental health services at Easterseals MORC are “layered,” according to Dr. Duquette. Case management is the outermost layer, a “point of contact” for the individual seeking support. Case managers help find the resources that the veteran or family member would require within the broader system. Sometimes funds are required, and the case manager is the first person to get the finances they need, through insurance, through public funds, and through the money that Easterseals MORC has set aside for that purpose.

All this doesn’t matter if a veteran won’t enter the door. This is where family and friends are extremely important. As Dr. Duquette shares, “most people … have at least one person who is looking out for them.” By being that one person, by caring above all else, it is possible to give loved ones the tools to succeed.

Mental health support creates space for people to open up, build new skills, and move forward with confidence. With the right care and support system, veterans like Zac can rediscover a path toward the life they want.