VBA Benefit facility pages: VetSuccessOnCampus (VSOC)

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Value to Veterans

• The VA created the VetSuccess on Campus (VSOC) program to help Veterans, Servicemembers, and their qualified dependents successfully complete their educational goals through a coordinated delivery of on-campus benefits assistance. - Recent legislation mentioned locations at 104 schools nationwide, serving more than 85,000 student Veterans.
• VSOC data and operating status is chronically out of date and local staff often request the locations be removed from the Facility Locator search results because of public misunderstanding of who can be served at the locations and which services are available there.

Background

- The VSOC program is under the VBA umbrella and searchable on the Facility Locator as a VA benefit type. - Per [Tester, Rounds Lead Bipartisan Effort to Expand Critical Program for Student Veterans Nationwide](https://www.veterans.senate.gov/2023/6/tester-rounds-lead-bipartisan-effort-to-expand-critical-program-for-student-veterans-nationwide), the VSOC program is currently located at 104 schools nationwide, serving more than 85,000 student Veterans but not in every state. - Each VSOC school has - a VA Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor (VRC) onsite - these VRCs are called VetSuccess on Campus (VSOC) Counselors. VSOC counselors are easily accessible on campus to help resolve any problems that could potentially interfere with a Veteran's educational program, to include assisting with disability accommodations. If needed, they can also provide referrals for health services through VA Medical Centers, Community-Based Outpatient Clinics, or Vet Centers. - a VA Vet Center Outreach Coordinator is also often co-located on many campuses, to provide peer-to-peer counseling and referral services. Some Vet Centers include CAPs at campus locations, such as [Houston West Vet Center, which has 2 University of Houston CAPs](https://www.va.gov/houston-west-vet-center/locations/) - VSOC services were standardized in early 2024 to include the following services at every location (these will need to be aligned with the appropriate services from the VA service taxonomy) - Applying_for_Benefits - Education_and_Career_Counseling - Education_Claim_Assistance - Location and service information is often available on the university/college website but content is created and maintained locally (Examples: [Veteran Readiness and Employment Office at East Carolina University](https://mvrc.ecu.edu/vet-success-on-campus/), [Community College of Rhode Island](https://ccri.edu/vso/vsoc)) - Facility Locator detail pages are present today

Headlines

Business stakeholder - VBA OCTO owner: Michelle Middaugh Is request tracked to an event or Congressional deadline? - Not yet although 'Ensuring VetSuccess On Campus Act of 2023 - 6/9/2023’ proposes to expand the program to at least one location in every state

Details

Who is the primary user? Veterans and Beneficiaries

What are the business goals?

• Provide Facility Detail information for VSOC Benefit locations, including Hours of operation, address, how to prepare for a visit, parking and transportation, etc.)
• Help Veterans understand the services available at the office and where to get help for other needs

How does this map to our North Star?

• Power twice as many interactions
• Improve accessibility of benefit content by sunsetting legacy, non-Drupal VBA facilities.

How well do we understand the problem?

• Foundational understanding has been gained through Regional office modernization work Questions/Problems to solve
• How might we quickly establish presence for these VBA locations on VA.gov?
• What is the venn diagram between Vet Center CAPs and VSOC?
• Should there be a connection between the college/university site and VA.gov page?
• How to account for locations almost exclusively located on school campuses

What is OCTO's role in this work?

• If needed, adjust Regional office content model and strategy to fit VSOC facilities
• Map services from database to new VA service taxonomy
• Train and support editors in their creation of Drupal content
• Facilitate data availability in Lighthouse

What are the known risks? Team capacity and competing priorities Alignment across VBA business unit and top down support for this initiative

Reference links:

• VetSuccess on Campus at Portland State University
• VSOC locations are also listed on https://www.benefits.va.gov/vocrehab/vsoc.asp

[mmiddaugh]

Related: CMS: Make Drupal source of Truth for VBA facility data #15366

[mmiddaugh]

Update 6.7.2024

• On hold pending Lighthouse capacity and Regional office modernization initiative

[mmiddaugh]

Update 8.8.2024 no change

[mmiddaugh]

Update 9.3.2024 No timeline for prioritization