SAN ANGELO, Texas — West Texas Counseling & Guidance is undergoing a Phase II expansion of its veterans program after receiving a grant from the San Angelo Health Foundation. The center received $600,000 - a third of the money will be used for the veterans program expansion.
The veterans program has been part of the center since 2017, it started with a director and an outreach coordinator and it has expanded throughout the years.
“The health foundation has been such a great partner with us in fact, they saved the center in 2011, we were just about ready to close up and they came in and helped us with emergency funding,” West Texas Counseling & Guidance CEO Dusty McCoy said.
According to the nonprofit organization's website, the veterans program offers veteran peer support, benefits coordination, case management, support groups, individual therapy, couples counseling, family counseling, CPT for trauma, play therapy for children and anger management.
The program has several offices in different areas, but with the phase II project, it will have all veteran services on one floor so it can be a one-stop resource center.
“This will allow us to have everybody under one roof instead of seven different locations in town and that’s really important because we do a lot of crisis services through our zero suicide program and every day we have someone going to the wrong location that's suicidal and then we have to scramble around to get a therapist around to where they’re at and it’s just been its been very hard,” McCoy said.
With the funding, the West Texas Counseling & Guidance will allow more staff on duty to help those in need.
“We do psychological assessments and testing, we’ll be able to expand that and then just the number of therapists, we’ll be able to help with the demand for mental health services by adding additional therapists,” McCoy said.
McCoy said the construction for the veterans program project is expected to take around 12-14 months to complete.