Voice & Vision, Inc. & CompeerCORPS
Voice & Vision, Inc. & CompeerCORPS
VA Support for Veterans Facing Legal & Mental Health Challenges with Lily Thomas
VA Support for Veterans Facing Legal & Mental Health Challenges with Lily Thomas
VA Support for Veterans Facing Legal & Mental Health Challenges with Lily Thomas
Thursday 26th March 2026
Veterans Justice Outreach social worker Lily Thomas explains how the VA supports veterans facing legal, mental health, and substance use challenges.
18 minutes
Informative
Supportive
Hopeful
Encouraging
Authentic
About this podcast
Author:
Voice & Vision, Inc. & CompeerCORPS
Overview:
Categories:
Body & Mind
Recovery Reimagined
Navigating Challenges in Recovery
Healing from Sexual Trauma
Healing Relationships
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Episodes:
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Get the buttons here!VA Help for Justice-Involved Veterans: A Straight-Talking Guide with Lily Thomas
Episode Overview
- Veterans Justice Outreach works with courts and communities to connect justice-involved veterans to VA treatment as early as possible.
- The Veterans Response Team uses trained law enforcement and first responders with military experience to identify veterans in crisis and link them to services.
- Veterans Treatment Court offers a structured 18–24 month treatment-focused alternative, where successful completion can lead to charges being dropped or expunged.
- Coatesville VA provides extensive mental health care, including substance use treatment, PTSD programmes, anger management, and support for interpersonal violence.
- Lily urges veterans and families to “make the call,” even if they’re unsure about eligibility or don’t currently have legal issues, as rules change and help may be available.
"The message I'd like to share is to make the phone call... You're going to get better results when you get treatment, when you make that phone call."
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction and the legal fallout that sometimes follows? This conversation with Veterans Justice Outreach social worker Lily Thomas gives a clear, practical look at how support through the VA can change the course of a veteran’s life.
Lily, based at the Coatesville VA Medical Center and working in Delaware County, explains how her team steps in at the earliest possible point when a veteran is “justice involved.” She describes how they link veterans with VA services and treatment programmes, always with the court’s approval, aiming to deal with the issues that led to legal trouble in the first place.
You’ll hear about the Veterans Response Team, a new initiative made up of police and first responders with military experience, trained to ask a simple but vital question: “Have you served in the military?” From there, they connect veterans straight to the VA or local mental health services. Lily shares that this approach is already reaching veterans who have never been in treatment before, opening doors to housing, mental health care, and substance use support.
The chat also breaks down how Veterans Treatment Court works. It’s a team-based treatment court where charges may be held and even dropped once a veteran completes 18–24 months of structured treatment and case management. Lily’s role is to coordinate and monitor treatment and report back to the court, helping veterans build a solid foundation in sobriety, mental health stability, and practical life skills.
She also highlights the Coatesville VA’s strong focus on mental health, with inpatient and outpatient programmes for substance use disorder, PTSD, anger management, and interpersonal violence. Her closing message is simple and direct: make the call. Even if you’re unsure about eligibility, or even if you don’t have legal issues, reaching out could be the first step to getting the help you need. Could that one phone call be the turning point for you or someone you care about?