Supportive Services for Veteran Families

feat. Dr. Trina Clayeux

On this episode we cover the value of clinical support vs. peer support, and how the system responsible for mental health coverage often falls short for our veterans.

May 18, 2026

Podcast Episode
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00:00 | 29:34

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Supportive Services for Veteran Families feat. Dr. Trina Clayeux
May 15, 2026 Season 2 Episode 2

We are often encouraged not to neglect our mental health and seek therapy if we need to speak to someone. However, there is only one mental health professional for every 340 people in need of mental health services. This shortage is especially detrimental for military or veteran families.

Our guest today is Dr. Trina Clayeux, CEO of the nonprofit, Give an Hour. Give an Hour was created with the mission of developing resilience through individualized mental health programs aimed at closing access and delivery gaps for active military, veterans, and their loved ones.

On this episode, we cover the value of clinical support vs. peer support, and how the system responsible for mental health coverage often falls short for our veterans.

Transcript

Ali Habashi: Alright, so starting at the top, why was Give an Hour founded?
Dr. Trina Clayeux: So, 20 years ago, because we are actually in our 20th year anniversary, Give an Hour was founded in direct response to 9/11.

And so our entire model of mental health care has been around servicing military veterans and their loved ones. For the first 12 years or so it was really about clinical care matching.

Before we were having the kind of mental health conversations we're having now, it was really challenging in the military veteran environment to talk about mental health, and certainly to flag that you may be struggling or may feel a certain level of distress.

So it was highly stigmatized, there weren't a lot of systems in place, and we certainly weren't in a position where we were having the same types of conversations we are having now. And so I would consider us an option or an alternative option for those service members, veterans, and loved ones that need to access to clinical care.

What our founder built was an entire network across the country of licensed mental health professionals who “give an hour” of that no-cost, low-barrier mental health care. Since that time, we have evolved where we continue to work with mental health professionals from across the country, but we also understand that clinical care isn't the solution.

We wanted to give them additional opportunities to seek care, so we've expanded to also include peer support. We do nonclinical work, which we could talk a little deeper about because I think we have an incredibly interesting model.

Ali: Can we talk about the different values of each of those, where maybe they come in and where there's a barrier with some of them?
Dr. Clayeux: Absolutely. I don't think it'd be a surprise to anybody that stigma around mental health continues to be, I would say, probably one of the largest, if not the largest, barrier to care. While it's different now, I feel like it's just morphed into a different type of stigma.

And so while we have more awareness and we're having different conversations, we find that really, on that personal level, that people have a lot of apprehension about seeking care, about raising their hand and being recognized as someone that might have a care need. And so the jump to clinical care for a lot of people is too far, and that's why having options is an empowering strategy for people to be empowered to make decisions about their mental health journey.

But it also provides a lot of autonomy for people to make a choice about what type of help they want and where they seek it. For people who want to go right into clinical care, we try to make that pathway available and we know that there's multiple ways of getting to the kind of care that you need.

We really trust lived experience as a highly valuable, very legitimate, very powerful pathway for people to get care. Making sure that people have access to that nonclinical support, which is all about community, we can learn a lot from them about how they build community and how they maintain it. It's a really important way for people to also have pathways into an elevated level of care if that's something that they want and need.

...

Dr. Clayeux: Yes, the systems engagement is just so complex on top of people who are already dealing with so many layers of complexity. And that is again why we try to make it as barrier-free as possible. We do a low-barrier intake form. We try to do a lot of high-tech, high-touch, where we absorb some of the load.

I always say it's not about the paperwork. We don't want a piece of paper to interfere with our ability to help someone and to connect with them. So the fact that we have people to reach out and if a person doesn’t ask to be called, we don't call them. If they ask for a text, we're going to text them. You really have to think about who your customer is and how they want to experience you.

And also remember that they're not going to get back to you in 20 minutes because they're not sitting on their phone all day and so you have to adapt to their rhythm.

Conclusion

Dr. Clayeux: I would say the more that we can, the more we have to lead into each other. It is reciprocal. Other people benefit from being able to support you just like you benefit from supporting them.