Strengthening Bridges
The Next Chapter of Service Begins at DU
With renewed support from Caring for Denver Foundation, the University of Denver (DU) Graduate School of Professional Psychology (GSPP) is expanding its Strengthening Bridges Project to enhance family-centered mental health care and access to services for Veterans, service members, and their families.
Military families face a wide range of challenges, from mental health concerns to everyday pressures that accompany service life. Many grapple with housing insecurity, legal issues, changes in jobs, frequent moves, and childcare responsibilities while navigating complex VA and Veteran support systems. For some, the greatest challenge is finding help that reflects their lived experiences, both during and after active duty.
Caring for Denver Foundation
Created and funded by Denver voters, Caring for Denver Foundation addresses Denver’s mental health and substance misuse needs by growing community-informed solutions, dismantling stigma, and turning the community’s desire to help into action. An initial grant from the Foundation supported GSPP’s Strengthening Bridges Project, designed to close gaps in care for military service members, Veterans, and their families while training a workforce to support them.
The new grant funding is expanding the program’s capacity and strengthening its network of support, ensuring Denver’s military and veteran families can more readily access timely, coordinated mental health care and adjacent services.
Strengthening Bridges
What sets the Strengthening Bridges Project apart is its integrated approach. Housed within GSPP, the program connects the Sturm Center — serving Veterans, service members, and families — with the Caring for You and Baby (CUB) Clinic, which focuses on perinatal through age-five mental health.
From the beginning, the Strengthening Bridges Project has prioritized building a network of care. The program connects DU clinics with trusted community organizations, creating a coordinated system of support for families.
“We’re bridging family specialty work with military specialty work,” explains Katy Barrs, PsyD, clinical associate professor and director of the DU Sturm Center. “Because the clinics are co-located, referrals are seamless. And when families are not ready for mental health care but need help with basic needs like housing, legal, or financial support, we connect them with community partners. It works both ways; these trusted partners also refer families back to us when they’re ready for mental health services.”
Tracy Vozar, PhD, who helped launch the Strengthening Bridges Project and continues to collaborate on the program as a community consultant and former DU faculty member, emphasizes the importance of viewing the family as a single unit.
“Our CUB Clinic regularly treats families who are seeking treatment for their young children with difficulties around regulation or behavior,” she says. “Many times, the bigger picture is that one or both parents are military service members or Veterans dealing with major stressors. I train our clinicians to look at the family as a whole unit,” Dr. Vozar explains. “Deployments, frequent moves, housing difficulties — they all affect the entire family system.”
Unlike traditional approaches that separate the caregiver’s needs from the child’s, the Strengthening Bridges Project takes a holistic view. This means parents can receive PTSD treatment while their toddlers engage in play therapy nearby, or a pregnant service member can access perinatal support while their partner receives counseling.
This continuum of care at DU also extends beyond therapy. The Sturm Center is the only clinic in Colorado providing free and low-cost Independent Medical Opinion assessments for Veterans, including discharge upgrades and disability evaluations. These specialized assessments, which typically cost thousands of dollars elsewhere, can unlock disability payments, home loans, medical services, and other critical benefits, while also serving as an entry point for mental health care.
Training the Next Generation
The Strengthening Bridges Project is also building the specialized workforce that many military families need. Few clinicians are trained in both perinatal and military mental health, leaving families to fall through the cracks and disengage from care.
“Providers may have the desire to serve military families, but lack the training,” says Barrs. “Families feel misunderstood or unsupported, and as a result, they stop coming.”
The Strengthening Bridges Project addresses this challenge by training future clinicians across disciplines, equipping them to work with military-connected families in ways that are culturally sensitive, developmentally informed, and trauma-responsive. This real-world training serves families while building the specialized workforce needed to sustain this care for years to come.
“The Strengthening Bridges Project exemplifies The Denver Difference,” says Dean Torrey Wilson, PhD. “Academic excellence, community partnership, and service are coming together to meet the needs of Veterans, service members, and their families. We are training clinicians in real-world settings who will make a lasting difference in the lives of those who have given so much.”
In addition, many Sturm Center clinicians are Veterans or service members themselves. Their empathy helps address a critical issue — high dropout rates among veteran families seeking mental health care. Vozar recalls a client describing the exhaustion of repeatedly explaining his military background and attempting to navigate complicated systems.
“He said it was so exhausting to try to explain, ‘Here’s who I am, where I’m coming from.’ Being able to understand that going in makes all the difference.”
What’s Next
The first three years of the Strengthening Bridges Project focused on building trusted partnerships with community organizations, including VA centers and others. Phase two creates what Vozar calls a constellation of connected care — introducing organizations to each other, sharing resources, and essentially building a village for families.
“We want to understand what’s most helpful and welcoming for the entire family,” says Vozar. Barrs agrees: “If we can create systems that feel accessible and respectful, systems that truly understand military families, we don’t just improve outcomes. We change what’s possible.”
To learn more about how a gift to the Strengthening Bridges Project can support family-centered mental health care for Veterans, service members, and their families, contact Ashley Haliko at ashley.haliko@du.edu or 303-871-2675.
Read more about DU’s interdisciplinary work to support Veterans and their families:
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