Free Veterans & Military Family Peer Talks — Online | BIAK
SMVF Talks — Service Members, Veterans, and Families Talks — is a free monthly online peer support group hosted by the Brain Injury Alliance of Kentucky. It brings together service members, veterans, and the families who support them, with particular attention to the overlap between military service and brain injury, including blast exposure, concussion history, and TBI acquired in or after service.
What to Expect The group meets on Zoom at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on the second Thursday of each month. Conversation is peer-led and shaped by whoever is in the room. Members talk about symptoms that are hard to explain to civilians, the work of navigating VA and community care, changes in memory, sleep, mood, and temper, and the strain that all of it places on spouses, parents, and adult children. Families attend alongside the veteran or service member rather than being asked to wait outside, which is part of the point — brain injury reshapes a household, not just a person.
Who This Group Is For This group is for active-duty service members, National Guard and Reserve members, veterans of any era and any discharge status, and their family members and caregivers. It is open across Kentucky and does not require VA enrollment, a service-connected disability rating, or a confirmed brain injury diagnosis to attend. Family members are welcome whether or not the veteran in their life participates.
Why Peer Support Works Veterans consistently report that the first person who truly understood their symptoms was another veteran. Military culture places a high value on self-reliance, which can make clinical help feel like an admission of failure — but a peer conversation is not experienced the same way. For families, peer support closes a different gap: it puts them in contact with other households doing the same work, so that a caregiver learns their exhaustion is common rather than a personal shortcoming. Combined with formal VA and community care, that shared context helps people stay engaged in treatment instead of quietly dropping out of it.
How to Join SMVF Talks is free and no registration or application is required. Meetings are held on Zoom at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on the second Thursday of each month, and the join link is posted on the Brain Injury Alliance of Kentucky support group page at biak.us. For questions or to be added to the reminder list, call BIAK at 502-493-0609 or email info@biak.us. If you are a veteran or service member in crisis, you can also reach the Veterans Crisis Line at 988 and press 1, available 24 hours a day.