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Security Clearance Experts Encourage National Security Workers to Seek
Mental Health Treatment By Lindy Kyzer5:59 AM ET
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/07/security-clearance-experts-encourage-national-security-workers-seek-mental-health-treatment/374588/
There was a time when all counseling had to be listed on the SF-86 or
self-reported to security officers. Concerns about whether or not
reporting those issues would impact security clearance eligibility –
and therefore put an end to a military or government career – caused
many individuals to simply refuse to seek mental health treatment,
despite issues caused by post-traumatic stress, marital issues, or
even sexual assault.
After years of debate and a strong push by the military and
intelligence community, in 2017 the SF-86 was updated to indicate that
counseling did not need to be listed, just specific mental health
conditions, hospitalizations, and other mental health topics directly
related to reliability and trustworthiness. Despite that change to the
SF-86, many in the national security community still see mental health
issues through a pre-2016 lens, with concerns that counseling or
mental health treatment could negatively impact their careers.
Years after the SF-86 update, the issue of educating the government
and national security workforce about why mental health treatment is
actually a positive step in security clearance eligibility remains.
That concern comes as a growing segment of government and national
security leaders are concerned that mental health may be the next
epidemic negatively impacting their workforces.
“The facts show that we are experiencing a global mental health
crisis,” said Amy Gilliland, president of IT service management
company GDIT, and moderator of a recent panel hosted by the
Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) about mental health
and intelligence careers. “The intelligence community hasn’t been
spared in these facts.”
One in five U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2020, according
to the National Institute of Health (NIH). The National
Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) pushed clarifying
guidance in 2020 to ensure cleared professionals knew that seeking
mental health treatment for COVID-19 related issues would not cost
their security clearances. The reality is mental health – while an
adjudicative guideline – rarely results in clearance denials and
revocations. In the 8-year span from 2012 to 2020 just .00115% of all
security clearance denials and revocations involved mental health, and
even in those cases, no one was denied a clearance simply for
receiving mental health treatment.
Officials across ODNI, DCSA, and the private sector are all working to
reduce stigma around mental health issues and encourage cleared
workers to get mental health care and treatment, and to clarify that
doing so is actually a mitigating factor in the security clearance
process. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA),
which conducts investigations across more than 95% of the cleared
workforce and interfaces with more than 105 agencies, has emphasized
that there are no psychological conditions automatically resulting in
security clearance denial. The key factor the government looks at is
if the individual is following through with treatment.
“If there is a myth out there that, ‘if I go to behavioral health
[services] it will be a career killer,’ … it’s to the contrary;
we at adjudications very much see participating in treatment as a
favorable thing,” said Michael Priester, the chief psychologist at
DCSA.
For the very small segment of security clearances denied based on
mental health issues, it is often failure to seek treatment that was
an issue in the denial. Mental health issues are also often
cross-populated with other significant adjudicative issues, such as
alcohol abuse, criminal conduct, or personal conduct.
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Both the government and private sector are pushing to improve the
narrative around mental health.
“Intelligence community employees, they deal with the same stressors
that everyone is dealing with right now,” said Mark Frownfelter,
assistant director for the Special Security Directorate (SSD) within
the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. “We have
financial strains. We have work problems, family issues. And that will
result in depression, anxiety…some turn to substances to help
alleviate some of those illnesses or conditions. So it’s important
that we dispel this myth about seeking support and seeking treatment,
and how it could possibly negatively impact your clearance.”
Personnel security professionals across ODNI and DCSA emphasize the
process is focused on behavior, not a specific diagnosis, and even
though specific psychiatric conditions do currently need to be listed
on the form, it is not because having those conditions will
automatically result in clearance denial. What the government is
concerned about is behavior.
Priester emphasized that mental health practitioners involved in the
security clearance process offer opinions on ‘behaviors of
concern’ – but even those opinions are still considered through
the government’s ‘whole person concept’ and left to the
expertise of adjudicators.
While the government looks to ensure cleared professionals don’t let
stigma stop them from seeking mental health treatment, a growing
number of government contractors are also working to ensure their
workforces are getting the help and support they need. GDIT launched a
‘How are you, really?’ campaign to get to the heart of how its
employees really are in a time of significant stress, societal
pressures, and national recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Federal government and private sector health plans typically include
Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) which include access to a certain
number of free mental health sessions each year. But many companies
and agencies find these to be an untapped benefit. In response to
COVID-19, 39% of employers expanded their mental health services,
according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2021 Employer Health
Benefits survey. Despite increased access to mental health treatment,
however, separate reports by the Society of Human Resource Managers
(SHRM) found that just 3.5% of employees take advantage of their EAP
each year.
Frownfelter emphasized stigma may be one factor in keeping national
security workers from seeking treatment, but EAP usage figures
demonstrate it’s clearly not a problem unique to the IC.
“The good news is I think we’re in a unique place to address
this,” Frownfelter said. “The pandemic opened our eyes to the
mental health and well-being of our workplace.”
As companies and agencies look to support their workforces through
proactive programs like dependent care, remote work, and flexible work
hours, the conversation begins to pivot to how to seek help – and
why that’s okay, including for workers supporting some of the
government’s most sensitive missions. As GDIT’s program emphasizes
– sometimes it’s OK not to be OK.
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