Cohen Veterans Network Challenges Military Couples to Put Their Love in Action
STAMFORD, Conn., Feb. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Cohen Veterans Network (CVN), a national not-for-profit network of mental health clinics for post-9/11 veterans, service members, and their families, announced today the launch of Love in Action: A Military Couples Challenge, a new awareness campaign designed to provide military couples with tools and resources to strengthen their relationships while navigating the demands of military life. Since its inception in 2016, CVN has been committed to supporting military couples with over 17,000 individuals in couples therapy.
Military couples face distinct challenges, including long separations and frequent moves. On average, service members are required to relocate every two to four years as part of their military service. Such obligations, combined with the day-to-day stressors of military life, can test even the strongest relationships – a reality experienced firsthand by many of the more than one million active duty service members, 15 million veterans, and their partners.
'Military couples are the foundation of strong and resilient families, yet they often face unique challenges that can strain their relationships,' said Cohen Veterans Network president and CEO Dr. Anthony Hassan. 'Through this campaign, we aim to empower military couples with practical tools to strengthen their partnerships and navigate life's stressors together.'
At the center of Love in Action: A Military Couples Challenge is a Relationship Checklist. It is designed to help couples easily evaluate key aspects of their relationship such as communication and conflict resolution. Once couples identify areas for improvement, they're 'challenged' to utilize actionable strategies to help deepen their connection.
'Healthy relationships are fundamental to overall mental well-being,' said Dr. Hassan. 'CVN is focused on supporting military couples in ways that strengthen their ability to thrive, both individually and as a team.'
Since 2016, CVN has treated 80,000 clients and provided over 700,000 clinical sessions. In addition to relationship challenges, the network treats a wide variety of mental health concerns including depression, anxiety, transition challenges, adjustment issues, anger, PTSD, grief and loss, family issues, and children's behavioral problems. Care is available through the network's 22 Cohen Clinics serving 20 states in-person and via CVN Telehealth, face-to-face video therapy.
Cohen Clinic B-roll and CVN map are available here.
Cohen Veterans Network (CVN) is a 501(c)(3) national not-for-profit philanthropic organization for post-9/11 veterans, active duty service members and their families. CVN focuses on improving mental health outcomes, operating a network of outpatient mental health clinics in high-need communities, in which trained clinicians deliver holistic evidence-based care to treat mental health conditions. It was established in 2016 by philanthropist Steven A. Cohen with a commitment of $275 million to build the network. Learn more about CVN at cohenveteransnetwork.org.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

USA Today
05-08-2025
- USA Today
Airplane evacuation safety concerns resurface after American Airlines incident
When an American Airlines flight was evacuated on the runway in Denver in July, video showed many of the passengers going down the slides with their carry-on luggage in tow. That's a big no-no from safety experts, and it sparked the latest round of concerns from lawmakers and others that airplane evacuations just can't happen as safely as they should. In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration a few days after the American Airlines incident, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said he's concerned that airlines are no longer configured with evacuation safety in mind. Cohen sponsored legislation that was passed as part of the 2024 FAA reauthorization, which requires the agency to conduct new evacuation testing to ensure modern aircraft can be evacuated in 90 seconds or less. The agency previously conducted evacuation testing in 2019, but many experts and lawmakers, including Cohen, said the design of those tests was flawed. 'The urgency of these concerns was made evident by the recent emergency evacuation of American Airlines Flight 3023 at Denver International Airport, reportedly triggered by a landing gear fire. Video footage shows smoke pouring from the aircraft as passengers – some with carry-on bags, others carrying children – rushed down emergency slides." Cohen's letter said, adding that the evacuation appeared to have taken as long as 15 minutes. 'Congress did not write the EVAC Act into law to produce symbolic improvements. We did so to ensure that every passenger, regardless of age, size, ability or language. can evacuate safely and efficiently in an emergency. While it's unclear whether the FAA will conduct new, more rigorous, evacuation testing, experts said there are some things passengers can do to ensure they get off the plane as quickly and safely as possible in an emergency. The most important thing is to leave everything behind. 'During an evacuation, seconds matter. The time you take to grab something from in front of you or from the overhead compartment, it's wasting time, and that time could result in a fatality,' Anthony Brickhouse, director of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Forensic Lab, previously told USA TODAY. 'It creates clutter, and it could damage the slide, which can make it inoperable … The most important thing is to get yourself out of that aircraft as quickly as possible.' Other helpful actions include paying attention to the safety briefing on every flight, identifying your nearest exist, knowing your escape route and leaving your shoes on for takeoff and landing. Those phases of flight are when issues most often occur, so it's a good idea to be ready to move if you have to.


Vox
30-07-2025
- Vox
Most couples used to meet this way. What happened?
Like many women these days, 30-year-old Jude Cohen is over dating apps. So she's decided to relinquish some of the responsibility in finding a partner: 'I'm asking my friends to set me up,' the New York City-based communications consultant says. Late last year, a family friend heeded the call and, without warning, introduced Cohen to a potential date via text. The man lived in her hometown, hundreds of miles away, but she wasn't opposed to long distance. Prior to their date a few weeks later — Cohen was back in town for a wedding — she knew scant about him. She made an attempt to find her date's Instagram but was unsuccessful. The date was fine, she says, and the conversation was 'lovely.' But Cohen just wasn't attracted to her date. Ironically, if he lived in New York, she'd have plenty of friends to set him up with. Still, Cohen is holding out hope for a successful setup. 'I continue to ask my friends to set me up,' Cohen says. 'It was not a deterrent that the first time didn't work out. All in all, it wasn't a bad experience. It's just a part of the numbers game that you have to play to find your person.' Vox Culture Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The setup can feel like a relic of a bygone era of dating. Introducing two friends who might be romantically compatible seems quaint in a time when people can filter through singles based on the most granular qualities on apps. But for most of modern dating, heterosexual couples were most likely to meet their spouse through friends. That is, until the 2010s, when meeting online overtook friend-facilitated introductions, a trend that has only accelerated since then. According to one study, only 20 percent of straight couples met through friends in 2017, compared to 39 percent who met online. Compare that to 1995, when a third of couples met through friends and only 2 percent met online. It's safe to say that the setup is, if not dead, on life support. But as more singles grow frustrated with dating apps and yearn for more organic connection, could a return to the setup be in order? Are singles willing to surrender control in pursuit of a partner? Related Delete your dating apps and find romance offline 'Of all the things I've heard people say they're doing to try to meet people more organically,' says Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor in human communication at Arizona State University, 'getting set up isn't one that I've had people tell me that they're really longing to go back to. For some of them, they probably never experienced it.' From introductions to algorithms Coupling up only became an individual pursuit recently. Historically, choosing a partner was a group affair. Outsiders have had influence on romantic relationships in myriad ways: For centuries, parents the world over have had some degree of control over who their children married (and in some cultures, they still do); a long line of matchmakers worked to connect families in their communities; and friends, extended family, neighbors, coworkers, and other group members all had a stake in who their friends paired off with. A study from 1991 found that when a couple felt their family and friends approved of their relationship, they were more likely to stay together. (It should be noted that study participants were primarily middle-class college students.) The setup comes with clear upsides. If a mutual friend thinks there might be something between two people in their orbit and goes out of their way to make an introduction, that speaks volumes. Knowing this person has been vetted and vouched for in some way is appealing. A setup has built-in accountability, too. Your date may be less likely to be a jerk if they know their behavior might get back to their friends. But being this intertwined can also get awkward in the event of a fight or breakup, when personal moments are suddenly fodder for group gossip. Over the last few decades, choosing a partner became a more private pursuit. The facilitating friends also have a lot at stake. Research shows that playing matchmaker for friends is associated with higher wellbeing, happiness, and, overall, is a rewarding experience. The matchmaker might feel a sense of ownership over the fledgling couple, the reason for their love. A successful setup has implications beyond the couple themselves, too — the friend group deepens with new connections and can fracture if the relationship dissolves, with mutual friends choosing sides or dividing time between exes. But over the last few decades, choosing a partner became a more private pursuit, says Reuben J. Thomas, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. Instead of leaning on social networks to facilitate a match, dating is now 'a very personal quest to find a relationship that helps you become the person you want to be, the best you, to 'self-actualize' through your relationship/marriage (and to leave the relationship if it hampers that),' Thomas says in an email. Instead of relying on the extended network of your community, you can sort through profiles of hundreds of strangers from the privacy and comfort of your bedroom. One of dating apps' greatest strengths is their ability to connect users to people outside of their social network. Most Americans marry people of similar racial, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and dating apps have the power to at least diversify the dating pool, if not totally buck the trend. Your friends and family are limited in their social reach; they only interact with a finite number of people at work, at school, at clubs. There's an even greater cap on how many of those people are single. 'People's friendship circles tend to have fewer single people in them as they age beyond early adulthood, as more and more of their friends enter marriages and long-term relationships,' Thomas says. With increased exposure to a diverse array of strangers, singles on apps have more control over their love lives. In a period of history when Americans are spending less time with friends — and more time alone — you might not want to wait around for a pal to set you up with their coworker, nor should you have to. 'That's quite a bit different than how we've always met our partners,' Sharabi says. 'Usually, we run in the same network, we have the same habits, routines. When you talk about introducing somebody who's entirely independent from that, it does change the dynamic a little bit.' Removing friends and family from the romantic equation has some downsides, Sharabi says. In a study, Sharabi found that couples who met online reported slightly less satisfying and stable marriages than those who met offline. This can be attributed to lingering stigma around app-faciliated connections and family members who may judge a partner from outside their circles more harshly. 'Now you've got friends and family that are really disconnected from the process as well. They're not always supportive of the relationship,' Sharabi says. 'You're out there meeting strangers who they may or may not approve of because they just don't know them.' The new dating experience The setup may also not mesh with modern dating's array of expectations. The amount of information app users have access to prior to a date — an assortment of photos, interests, career, even weeks' worth of conversation — far exceeds the brief bit of background a friend may offer before setting you up. Another expectation of digital courtship — that the 'perfect' person is just a swipe away — can further dilute the allure of a setup. If the date you met online fails to meet your standards, hope springs eternal that the next profile will check all your boxes. With seemingly endless options, singles might discount someone simply because they don't have the right look or the right job. The nature of the setup is virtually the opposite: Here's one person you might jive with. If you aren't satisfied, it might be awkward with your mutual friend — and you'll be sent straight back to the dating apps. 'I feel like my friends have been single for so long,' says Maxine Simone Williams, the founder of the speed dating event series We Met IRL, 'they have a laundry list of what they want, which makes it even harder to set them up, because it's like, well, you don't want this.' On rare occasions, Williams has seen some event attendees walk in, survey the room, and leave. 'They're like, nobody here was my type,' she says. As much as modern daters lament the constant rejection and expendability of modern dating culture, it's also possible that they enjoy being in the driver's seat and having control. 'You do often hear people yearning for a simpler time of romance, but I think in reality they would hate it if society went back to the old ways,' of family-controlled marriages and having fewer options, Thomas says. 'Losing the ability to just shop for potential partners oneself, to have choice and agency, to be able to take the initiative and fairly quickly find a date in a big online space full of options, losing that would greatly frustrate most people today.' When it comes to dating in college, Chicago-based marketing intern Aliza Akhter has relied on apps to meet other singles. The last time the 20-year-old met a significant other through friends was in high school. To Akhter, setups are something her parents' generation did. Her friends don't ask each other if they have other single friends. She'd be open to meeting someone at a friend's party or even a setup date, but she's in the minority, she says. 'If you're single, it's pretty much a given that you either have a dating app or you have at some point,' Akhter says. 'So maybe it's just the fact that people know that there's another easier option than the introduction.' Algorithms have replaced the role of family and friends in facilitating relationships. Still, the fate of the setup isn't all grim. In recent research, Arielle Kuperberg, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has found among thousands of college students nationwide, more are now meeting romantic partners through friends and family than they were in 2019. Fewer are meeting partners online compared to 2020, when nearly a quarter of respondents met their significant other online. 'We have a five-year period we look at in this paper, from 2019 through 2024,' Kuperberg says, 'and the last year was the highest rate at which people were met through friends and family. So I think there could be a comeback.' Sharabi, however, is not as optimistic. 'I think it's dead,' she says, 'and I think that dating apps killed it.' In her view, algorithms have replaced the role of family and friends in facilitating relationships and despite apps' negative publicity as of late, she doesn't see them disappearing altogether. But if Jude Cohen, the freelance communications consultant in New York, has anything to say about it, the setup will live on. Cohen and her friends have sought to make the experience more joyful by organizing what they call the 'Blind Date Club' where each friend is tasked with bringing a date to dinner for another person in the group. Some brought friends of friends, others made dating app profiles on behalf of their pal. ('It was very clear on the profile I'm swiping for my friend Amy,' Cohen says.) Cohen found a date for her friend John by posting a video on TikTok. Five out of the six couples extended their date beyond the initial dinner. Cohen was one of them — she had a few more dates with her setup, too. Although none of the matches grew into anything more serious, Blind Date Club was a whimsical way of bringing community back into dating.
Yahoo
27-07-2025
- Yahoo
‘In Gaza, starvation hits us mentally and physically. $2,000 won't even buy two weeks' bread'
For Hassan, surviving famine in Gaza is about the calculations he faces daily – starting with how to precisely split a single piece of bread so that each quarter is a meal. He walks three miles every day to look for vegetables, and spends hours getting firewood to cook what little food he can find. Last week he spent four days looking in vain for flour, rice or pasta – instead he saw people fainting on the streets from lack of food. After finding three cans of beans, he worried for hours about the best way to portion them up between a family of five, even consulting ChatGPT for strategies to ration out the calories. Hassan has lost more than 38kg (six stone) since March, when Israel began a full blockade of Gaza and food rapidly became scarce. 'We have to calculate everything to ensure our survival,' he said. 'This kind of starvation – it's hitting us mentally, not just physically. That's the struggle.' Despite this, Hassan is considered one of the lucky ones. His work with the United Nations agency for refugees, Unrwa, means he has a steady income. But even this is no longer enough to feed his family. He managed to evacuate his wife and children earlier in the war, staying behind to care for his elderly parents. Hassan pools his monthly wage with his brother's and sister's incomes so that they and their parents can eat once or maybe twice each day. Unrwa requested Hassan's name was changed here for his protection. Being able to afford a daily meal is now considered a luxury when many say they are going days at a time without eating. At least 100 people have died from malnutrition in Gaza according to the UN, most of them children. The UN's Office for Humanitarian Affairs, Ocha, says most of Gaza's 2 million people are surviving on one small meal each day, and the World Food Programme estimates 500,000 people are starving. 'For me, as one well paid in comparison with other people in Gaza, I get around $2,000 (£1,490) a month – this wouldn't even cover the cost of eating bread for half the month now,' said Hassan. The few places selling sugar do so at £1.50 a gram using scales from a jewellery shop A punishing money transfer system to get his wages in cash takes almost half his salary, further raising the cost of food: £22 for a kilo of tomatoes, £18 for cucumbers or £35 for a bag of onions – all so expensive he buys one at a time. The few places selling sugar or coffee granules do so at £1.50 a gram, using scales that were once used in jewellery shops for measuring small amounts of gold. The cans of beans that Hassan rationed so carefully cost almost £8 each; before the war they cost one shekel, or 20p. He reminisced about when the smallest amount of sugar on sale was a 3kg bag. 'Last week my mother asked us to sell one of her gold bracelets from her wedding dowry, to feel she's contributing and isn't being a burden to us,' he said. Reluctantly, her children agreed. Hassan recently noticed that it can take him an hour to write an email because his focus has dimmed because of constant hunger. Officials from three UN agencies told The Observer they are increasingly fearful for their staff, whom they have seen faint from hunger. Journalists from three major news agencies and the BBC also stated last week that their Gaza colleagues faced the same conditions as those they reported on, meaning they were often unable to work owing to lack of food. Juliette Touma, Unrwa's director of communications, said: 'We have about 12,000 staff, the largest number of UN staff in Gaza, and they are saying to us that they can't work any more as they're simply exhausted – they are walking miles to find anything to eat. Our staff are fainting while on duty, so the caretakers in Gaza are in need of care themselves.' Unrwa alone has 6,000 trucks' worth of aid sitting in Jordan and Egypt Since Israel increased its blockade of Gaza in early March, only a trickle of aid has been able to enter with the UN. Instead, Washington and the Israeli authorities have backed a highly controversial militarised scheme to distribute boxes of food called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which claims to have distributed millions of meals despite a visibly deepening famine. This scheme has also proved deadly – the UN's human rights office estimates that more than 1,000 people have been killed seeking aid since GHF launched operations. Touma estimates Unrwa alone has 6,000 trucks' worth of aid sitting in Jordan and Egypt. Israeli authorities pointed to a buildup of aid at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, claiming that the UN was failing in its duties to collect it. Speaking in front of pallets of aid at the crossing, Col Abdullah Halabi, with the Israeli military body that oversees aid into Gaza, blamed 'a lack of cooperation from the international community and international organisations'. Max Rodenbeck of the International Crisis Group mourned the collapse of ceasefire talks, calling the famine 'an entirely manmade disaster' and urging Israel to open to doors to international aid. Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for Ocha in Gaza, said collecting the aid required extensive coordination with the Israeli authorities as almost 90% of Gazan territory was now under either evacuation orders or in military zones. 'If an aid collection mission is approved, you have to wait sometimes up to 46 hours to move around, as there has to be coordination with troops on the ground, so they pause fighting and allow us to manoeuvre between their ground operations,' she said. 'This can take hours, or lead to nowhere when we wait for a green light that never comes.' Photograph by AFP/Getty