Your VR&E Benefits and Services

The Planning Process

After you are approved for Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E), you and your Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor (VRC) work together to create your rehabilitation plan. (If you are attending or planning to attend a school with a VetSuccess on Campus (VSOC) program, you can work with a VSOC counselor.)

Based on your needs and goals, your plan lists the VR&E services you can use to help you get education or training, find and keep a job, and to live as independently as possible. Once you have your plan, your counselor provides ongoing counseling and helps you get tutoring, job training, medical referrals, and other support.

VR&E’s Support-and-Services Tracks

Your rehabilitation plan follows one of VR&E’s five support-and-services tracks. Your counselor can help you choose the track that’s best for you.

• Re-Employment Track: Get support for returning to the job you had before you deployed. Among other services, VR&E helps your employer meet your needs.
• Rapid Access to Employment Track: Learn how to use your existing skills to find a job right away that matches your abilities and interests. VR&E offers professional or vocational counseling, as well as help with your job search, writing resumes, preparing for interviews, and deciding if you qualify for Veterans’ Preference in hiring.
• Self-Employment Track: Get the skills and support you need to start your own successful business. VR&E helps you develop a business plan, analyze your business concept, and get the resources you need, as well as providing training in small-business operations, marketing, and finances.
• Employment Through Long-Term Services Track: Get vocational counseling and the education or training you need to change career fields and find work that better fits your current abilities and interests. This can include on-the-job training, apprenticeships, internships, work-study, or higher education, as well as a monthly cash subsistence allowance.
• Independent Living Services Track: Get support and counseling if you need help with daily activities like bathing or dressing and either can’t return to work right away or are trying to find a job that is a goal you and your Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor have created. You can usually get these benefits and services for up to 24 months, but in some cases this limit can be extended.

The VR&E benefits and services you get in these tracks can include (but are not limited to):

• The cost of job training or education
• A monthly cash benefit called a subsistence allowance
• Medical expenses needed to finish your rehabilitation program, including treatment, care, prosthetics, dental, and eyeglasses
• Travel costs and expenses for rehabilitation and job-seeking
• Disability accommodations like assistive technology and workplace personal assistance
• Support needed to live as independently as possible
• Interview, resume, and job placement help
• Ongoing support after you get a job to help you keep it

The Personalized Career Planning and Guidance (PCPG) program is a VR&E service that offers educational and career counseling to eligible service members, veterans, and their dependents. PCPG used to be called Chapter 36 Educational and Career Counseling. You can get PCPG services if you already qualify for or get VA Education Benefits, or you are a service member who will be discharged within the next six months or you were discharged in the last 12 months. Learn more about PCPG in DB101’s Education and Training for Veterans article.

How Long Can You Get VR&E?

You can typically get VR&E benefits for up to 48 months, but in some cases your counselor may extend your benefits for longer.

And if you qualify for both VR&E and another VA education benefit, like the GI Bill, you may be able to get both. GI Bill programs have a 36-month limit on benefits, so you could possibly get up to 84 months of education benefits (48 plus 36). However, you must use your VR&E benefits first and then your GI Bill benefits, or you can lose some of those months. If you use your GI Bill benefits first, the GI Bill months will be deducted from your VR&E months. Learn more about GI Bill benefits in DB101’s Vets Checklist article.

VR&E and Work

The goal of the VR&E program is for you to get and keep a job that doesn’t make your disability worse; is stable; and matches your abilities, aptitudes, and interests, and for you to live as independently as possible. If you do find and keep a job like that while on VR&E, the VA may decide that you have achieved your goal and your benefits may end.

However, if you can show that the work you are doing makes your disability worse or that because of your service-connected disability you struggle to be able to do everything required by your job, you may be able to work and keep getting VR&E benefits.