Inspiration Leads Veteran to New Career in Social Work

As a young sailor in the U.S. Navy in the late 1980s, Mark Lee flew over the Mediterranean while working in weapons on board the flight deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

Three decades later, as a social work intern at the Perry Point VA Medical Center, Lee is working with a caseload of seven patients who are in a domiciliary inpatient rehabilitation treatment program for homeless Veterans facing mental illness, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The internship will complete the requirements toward earning a master’s degree in social work from Salisbury University. When he graduates later this month, Lee’s formal education will provide him the knowledge he needs for his new career in social work. But it is Lee’s own background and experiences that enable him to connect so keenly with his patients. Lee can identify with the Veterans he is working with because just five years ago, he was in a similar situation.

A native of Baltimore, Lee had been getting routine health care as well as outpatient care for depression and PTSD at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. He participated in outpatient programs focused on mental health and wellness, and even led a spiritual group session with other patients that met weekly for three years. He was keeping his symptoms at bay, and he became an ordained minister.

Then Lee experienced overwhelming loss in his life, including the death of his mother.  He asked his VA therapist to get him into an inpatient PTSD program in Florida or California. “I just wanted to get away,” he recalls.

While he was on a waitlist, he continued to struggle. His breaking point came in early 2018. “I had been battling depression for so long. The PTSD symptoms were getting the best of me,” he says. “I decided to go to the Baltimore VA and check myself in. After a week or two, I was asked if I would go to Perry Point for treatment.”

Lee entered the residential rehabilitation treatment program at the Perry Point VA Medical Center in February 2018.

While he was getting the intensive treatment he needed, his instinct to lead and guide others kicked in once again. He began leading a bible study for other Veterans in the same program. With encouragement from one of the medical center’s chaplains, he moved the bible study to the chapel on campus, so that more Veterans could participate. Soon he had a group of about 20 Veterans meeting three times a week. He transitioned out of the program and into Veteran housing right on the Perry Point campus, and he began volunteering at the medical center, serving as a greeter to Veterans coming in for medical appointments and leading a whole health group session on “Taking Charge of My Life and Health.”

Lee started training to become a peer support specialist, a role at VA in which Veterans draw upon their own experiences recovering from PTSD, depression, and/or addiction to help other Veterans in recovery. Having finished all of the required training, all that was left for him to do was take the Maryland State certification program.

But then Lee thought back to the social worker who was his treatment coordinator while he was in the residential rehabilitation program. “He had two master’s degrees – I thought that was impressive – and he was a Veteran,” Lee says. “I saw the value that a social worker who was also a Veteran could bring to the table. Social workers work in all areas throughout  the VA, and there are so many ways that they can have a positive effect on Veterans. It’s not just working with the Veteran, it’s advocating for the Veteran, and that’s powerful.”

Lee enrolled in nearby Cecil College, earning an associate degree and continuing on to a Salisbury University program that offered Cecil College as a satellite campus. He earned a bachelor’s degree and immediately continued toward a master’s. When the time came to choose an internship, Salisbury asked students to provide three options. Lee says, “My three choices were Perry Point, Perry Point, and Perry Point!”

He was first offered a position in the Perry Point Community Living Center, working with Veterans in long-term care. His heart set on working with Veterans experiencing challenges related to addiction, homelessness and mental health, Lee held out until he was offered a position in the Domiciliary.

“As a social worker, I’m helping Veterans establish what direction they want to go in,  what’s important to them, what they want to achieve. And then I’m connecting them to all of the programs and resources that can help them achieve their goals,” he explains.

For patients in residential rehabilitation, this goal-oriented approach often includes getting a job, a car, housing, and going to school. These are the things that will have a lasting impact, says Lee. “We focus on what’s going to help them once they get out of the program, long-term,” he explains. “That’s what helped me, like going to school. How are you going to sustain yourself once you move on from the program? The class I teach is called Taking Charge of My Life and Health. That concept not only helped me with my life, it made me want to work with other Veterans to progress, and make the changes in their lives to be stable, set goals, and achieve those goals.”

Other staff in the Domiciliary have taken notice of Lee’s impact on the Veterans. One of the patients assigned to him, “J,” had already been through the program once before, during which time he rarely left his room. Lee developed a “walk and talk” therapy, slowly getting him comfortable with leaving his room and going on walks with Lee while the pair would talk as they walked throughout the campus.

“One day I came into work and the nurses were excited because J came out and went for a walk all on his own,” Lee says. “They told me, ‘You made a lot of difference in his life – he wouldn’t do half the stuff he does now when he was here before.’”

With Lee’s guidance, J is not only on a journey to recovery, he has taken steps no one ever expected.  J applied to Cecil College and was accepted.  A copy of the college acceptance letter sits on Lee’s desk, and he proudly shares it with others.  

Another of Lee’s patients in the rehabilitation program is working toward peer support certification. Michael has a job in housekeeping at Perry Point through the Compensated Work Therapy program. He recently completed the program and transitioned from the Domiciliary to a new apartment. He’s taking classes at the Community College of Baltimore County and has an internship with Voices of Hope in Elkton. Michael hopes to find a permanent job at Perry Point.

Yet another patient worked at Perry Point through Compensated Work Therapy while in the Domiciliary, completed the program, and now has a job with Johns Hopkins, Lee says.

“I’ve seen so many positive things come out of what I’ve been doing over the past nine months,” Lee says of his internship. “A lot of the Veterans I’ve worked with have succeeded, and I know they have the skills now that they’ll need to continue succeeding.”

As for his plans after graduation, Lee has a few job prospects. Whether he stays with VA or explores other opportunities, one thing is sure. Mark Lee will be calling upon his powerful combination of personal recovery, formal training, and an innate ability to lead to serve, inspire and make a difference in the lives of his fellow Veterans.