Home Base is a national non-profit started by the Boston Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital in 2009. Its mission is to heal the invisible wounds of war by providing service members and their families with first-class physical and emotional support, all at no cost to the patient/participant.
Home Base has served more than 40,000 Veterans and their family members. The nonprofit has trained over 85,000 clinicians nationwide, remaining at “the forefront of discovering new treatments to ensure a brighter future for 21st-century Warriors and their families.”
Home Base Florida began in South Florida in 2014. Like its parent, it is dedicated to healing the invisible wounds of war – such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression and co-occurring substance use – for veterans, service members and their Families through world-class clinical care, wellness, education and research.
From the website: “Since 2014, Home Base Florida has delivered gold-standard, evidence-based clinical care to more than 500 Florida Veterans and we remain at the forefront of discovering new treatments to ensure a brighter future for Warriors and their Families. To date, we have served more than 3,000 Florida Veterans and their Families through our Florida Warrior Health and Fitness program and Florida Adventure Series events.”
Betsy Hart, a military spouse and Northwest Florida native, is bringing this program to Pensacola with the Lakeview Center’s help, thanks to the Florida Legislature and the Blue Angels Foundation.
“We have clinicians that we’ve partnered with through the Lakeview Center,” Hart said on “Real News with Rick Outzen” this morning. “We brought our team down from Massachusetts and trained them in the same evidence-based care that we use in Boston. And so we’re not only expanding access, but we’re also increasing the quality of care that military folks can access here locally.”
She continued, “They’ll be able to get in-person care at Lakeview. We can also provide telehealth throughout the state no matter where someone lives. And what’s most important to me, as a military spouse, is that this is not just for the veteran and service member; this is for military family members as well.”
The formal launch ceremony for Home Base Pensacola will be held at 9 a.m. Friday, Nov. 1, at Veterans Memorial Park. The public is invited.
