Accessing Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits is a critical step toward income stability for Veterans whose work activity is limited by disabling conditions or who have children with disabilities. SOAR directly contributes to SSVF’s goal of promoting housing stability among very low-income Veteran families by increasing access to critical income supports.
The Medical Summary Report (MSR) is SOAR’s signature tool and key to a successful application. It provides a succinct, comprehensive summary of the applicant’s personal and treatment history and its impact on his or her life. It also clearly describes the factors affecting functioning and ability to work.
SOAR extends beyond accessing SSI/SSDI and also encourages employment as a means to increase individual income and further promote recovery. This issue brief explores Individual Placement and Support (IPS), a model of supported employment that has been developed over the past 25 years specifically for people who have behavioral health needs.
This toolkit, updated and re-released in August 2019, contains extensive resources on how to integrate the SOAR model into community planning efforts, for serving both Veterans and non-Veterans.
This article explains how you can promote SOAR with your Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) office to help ease their backlog and workload issues, while at the same time, improving access to expedited decisions for SOAR applicants.
SOAR Leaders can use the SOAR for Children: Process Intercepts Infographic when marketing SOAR for Children to new audiences or to identify areas for engaging new stakeholders.
This issue brief, developed by the SAMHSA SOAR TA Center, discusses best practices for integrating benefit options with community reentry strategies for people with serious mental illness and co-occurring disorders to promote post-release success.
Based on interviews with Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) grantees, this report from the VA addresses challenges to serving Veterans in rural areas and proposes strategies and needed resources for overcoming them.