The mission of the Training Institute at Home Base is to increase awareness and access for Veterans and Military Families to high quality care for the invisible wounds of war through education. Trainings are designed to help clinicians, first responders, military families and community members improve their understanding of military culture and the impact of military service on veterans and military families, identify the Invisible Wounds of War, provide evidence-based treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), such as Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy, and enhance resiliency and support for Veterans and their families.

The Training Institute at Home Base provides healthcare professionals, first responders, military families and community member’s access to brief online, on-demand, free courses on topics such as military culture, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, substance use disorders, complicated grief and supporting suicide survivors. More in depth multi-week online courses currently include military families, traumatic brain injury and motivational interviewing. In addition the Training Institute has provided evidence-based trainings in Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD to almost 200 community providers. These providers are now equipped with gold standard treatments for PTSD to offer Veterans seeking care in communities across Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

The Training Institute was formally launched with initial philanthropic funding from Welcome Back Veterans and the McCormick Foundation, and is currently funded through external funding from the Department of Defense, Defense Suicide Prevention Office (DSPO) with a specific focus on improving education for community providers to be able to treat members of the National Guard and Reserve in New England and raise the level of education around the country. In addition, grant funding from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) supported work developing and disseminating education to first responders, nurses and allied health professionals.

We are launching A new learning management system!

• The new system is streamlined and user-friendly, we hope you enjoy it.
• For all returning users, please use the same email address to log-in and you will be prompted to complete a one-time, brief survey and to provide a new password.  This process will allow us to transfer over all of your previous course activities and transcripts into the new system.
• To enhance usability, Google Chrome works most efficiently with the new system. Click here to download Chrome.
• For any questions or concerns please contact Lynda Reid at (866) 644-7792 or mghcme@mgh.harvard.edu.

Home Base offers education and training to meet a variety of needs. We are a resource for clinicians and community members who want to understand and support the mental health needs of Veterans and Families. We work with:

• Primary care providers and pediatricians who serve Veterans and Military Families
• State government and other organizations to train school nurses, educators, school administrators and family service organizations about the needs of Military families in their community
• Colleges and universities to understand the unique challenges of student Veterans and provide treatment
• Employers and employee assistance programs to build awareness of symptoms of PTS and TBI and help their Veteran employees and Military Families seek effective treatment
• First–responders including emergency medical, law enforcement and clergy in recognizing PTS and TBI
• National Guard and Reserve
• Military Families
• Educators

As a community service, the Training Institute offers CME/CE/CEU certified on-line and in-person training at no charge to clinicians, health care professionals and community members throughout New England and nationally.

Approximately 40% of returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans will seek medical care outside the VA Healthcare System.  Home Base is working to help community clinicians recognize the signs of post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury in Veterans and Military-connected Families who are patients in their clinical practices.  Many Veterans and their Families turn to their primary care doctor, pediatrician, clergy, school nurse, teacher, counselor and others in the community as ‘first responders’ for initial crisis intervention and counseling. These community caregivers have a genuine interest and desire to help, but they may need additional training to understand the military culture, recognize the symptoms of traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress, or know where to refer patients for care.  At Home Base, we believe that we are all first-responders in caring for our returning Veterans and Families.