A top Indiana National Guard mental health professional reached out Thursday to civilian mental health workers and urged them to learn more about returning soldiers’ common afflictions so they could counsel them.

“We need more therapists trained in PTSD and TBI,” Sydney H. Davidson, director of psychological health for the Indiana National Guard, told a gathering of nearly 100 managers of the Indiana Council of Community Mental Health Centers in Indianapolis.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury often make for rocky transitions for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly one in five returning veterans suffers from one or the other, or both.

So far, a handful of community mental health organizations have trained staffers to treat returning vets.

Last spring, Four County Counseling Center in Logansport received an $85,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to better serve veterans in four Northern Indiana counties. Four of the group’s 25 therapists have received training in PTSD and TBI, with six more scheduled for training later this year.

A therapist without such training “might still be able to counsel a veteran,” said Four County CEO Larry Ulrich, “but this formal training is important.”

Especially in rural areas, said Davidson — “It’s hard to find therapists in some of these little cities.”

A Heritage Foundation study has found that a disproportionately high number of the nation’s troops come from rural areas.

“When the 76th came back, many were not prepared,” Davidson said, referring to the roughly 3,000-member Indiana National Guard’s 76th Infantry Combat Brigade Team, which returned from Iraq last year. The deployment was the largest of Indiana soldiers since World War II. Most of the brigade hailed from small towns.

Two soldiers were killed in Iraq, and since their return, two have committed suicide.

Davidson said she often refers soldiers to counselors at the Department of Veterans Affairs, “but the VA is overburdened.”

The VA has 20 facilities around the state. Some, including the Indianapolis one, take walk-ins, said VA spokeswoman Julie Jackson. Two weeks is the longest a veteran has to wait for a mental health appointment, Jackson said.

“But sometimes these veterans are more comfortable in their community than going to the VA,” she said. “Any way they can get the treatment they need, that’s a good thing.”