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GAO-25-107631 1 (July 31, 2025)

handle is hein.gao/vavetctopnties0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Why This Matters Vet Centers play an important role in helping veterans and service members readjust to civilian life or to continued military service. They provide social and psychological services-including individual, group, marriage, and family counseling-to eligible veterans, service members, and their families. Within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) Readjustment Counseling Service (RCS) operated 300 Vet Centers nationwide in fiscal year 2024. The services and structure of Vet Centers are separate from the care provided at VHA medical facilities to better ensure privacy and confidentiality. Each Vet Center has one or more counselors. Counselors provided nearly 1.3 million counseling sessions to 110,754 unique clients across Vet Centers in fiscal year 2024, according to RCS. Each Vet Center also has a director, who is responsible for overseeing that Vet Center's staff. Vet Center directors also provide counseling services. The James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (2023 National Defense Authorization Act) includes a provision requiring VA to evaluate productivity expectations of Vet Center counselors annually by obtaining systematic feedback from counselors and to implement any needed changes to the expectations. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act also includes a provision for GAO to audit this feedback. In response to this provision, RCS administered a survey in 2023; this report examines the feedback RCS obtained. Key Takeaways • In 2023, RCS administered its first Counselor and Client Engagement Survey to all Vet Center counselors and directors to solicit feedback on how productivity expectations affect client care and counselor welfare. • RCS obtained an overall response rate of 37 percent for the survey but did not conduct an analysis of potential nonresponse bias in the survey (i.e., the degree to which respondents and nonrespondents differ on key characteristics). Thus, RCS does not know the degree to which responses are representative of all counselors and directors. • We identified issues with the clarity of the survey that limit RCS's ability to use the feedback collected to understand respondents' perspectives on counselors' productivity expectations. For example, it was unclear whether respondents were to provide feedback on the time management or the encounters expectations or both. • We recommend that RCS 1) analyze the potential for nonresponse bias in its Counselor and Client Engagement Survey and, as appropriate, develop strategies to increase the likelihood of representative survey findings and 2) modify the survey to clarify that counselors and directors should provide feedback on both productivity expectations for counselors. Page 1 GAO-25-107631 VA Vet Centers

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