Seek out and invite local professionals from either the Department of Public Health, your state military department, a nearby VA office/hospital, local university, the National Institute of Health, etc., to train your library staff on cultural sensitivity while working with military affiliated library patrons and military families. Alternatively, you can train select staff (train the trainers approach) to provide ongoing support and training.
Ask your potential trainers to provide an overview of military culture highlighting the basics of organizational structure; branches of service; rank chart; core values; and distinctions between active and reserve designation to help service providers to understand the military community. Cultural competence is defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and that enables them to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.
Library staff: Provide staff information that will help them feel more knowledgeable about veterans resulting in greater confidence when providing library services and programs to veterans and their families.
Free
Ongoing. Integrate as a part of library staff orientation and professional development.
One hour workshop
Definition of “Veteran”; Overview of the U.S. Military (military branches, rank structure, Active, Reserves, National Guard); Cultural Awareness (How do I interact effectively across cultures?); Overview of Local Veteran Population Data; Veteran Challenges (employment, housing, substance abuse, behavioral health and more); Veteran Strengths (self-motivated, organized, team-oriented, strong work ethic.)
Standard staff training resources of time and platform appropriate to the library. A dialogue format would be ideal.
Consistent reinforcement of staff awareness of cultural competence.
Ask staff that complete the training/orientation if they feel more informed and more comfortable engaging with veterans and more confident providing support.
Dawn La Valle, Connecticut State Library