OLYMPIA – The Department of Social and Health Services is helping train mental health workers, police, drug treatment counselors, tribal representatives and other community service personnel in how they can better serve troubled veterans returning to the United States after traumatic service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A partnership of state agencies and community organizations calling themselves "the Collaboration Group" is sponsoring a series of trainings this summer in the state. Sessions are planned:

Thursday, June 4, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., The Hampton Inn, 3985 Bennett Drive, Bellingham.

July 9, Tacoma.

July 30, Yakima.

Registration has closed for the Bellingham workshop, but additional information about the remaining two sessions is available by contacting David L. Reed, a mental health worker in the Health and Recovery Services Administration wing of DSHS.

Reed said the workshops were developed in response to the serious challenges that face local communities as soldiers still dealing with war trauma return from the battlefield after prolonged and repeated deployments. Partner agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the DSHS division that coordinates substance abuse treatment, Washington Association of Designated Mental Health Professionals and the federal Veterans Administration.

The workshops focus on the basics – what works and what doesn't – and instructors encourage participants to look ahead at the kind of crisis situations in which they may face a returning soldier losing control or posing a threat.

"The workshops provide information about the soldiers' needs," Reed said, "and they are upfront about the challenges these veterans may be dealing with at that point. We teach specific skills that you need to de-escalate this kind of crisis." Topics in the curriculum include veteran and military cultures, war trauma, traumatic brain injury, war-related post traumatic stress disorder and combat-related mental illness and stigma.

DSHS does not discriminate and provides equal access to its programs and services for all persons without regard to race, color, gender, religion, creed, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, age, veteran's status or the presence of any physical, sensory or mental disability.