Abstract-Veterans often face great difficulties during the community and family reintegration after military deployment. Mental health problems resulting from war related traumatic experiences often make social readjustment very difficult. Many research suggests that peer-mentorship can be very effective for mental-health problems. Dryhootch (DH), a community organization led by veterans, has implemented a veteran peermentor program. The primary objective of DH program is to provide peer-mentor support to veterans going through social readjustment. In this paper we propose to expand DH's paperbased peer-mentor program with a mobile-based system, iPeer. The proposed expansion improves the efficiency of the current DH approach by augmenting the existing social process with mobile technologies used extensively by younger veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. We provide a description of the evolution of this mobile-based peer-mentor support tool through collaborative design research. We also present our initial usability findings in order to demonstrate the improved efficiency offered by the augmented technology.

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We are investigating how mobile technology can help through the process of civilian reintegration to address the impact of reintegration related stress on veterans. As part of our investigation we have developed the prototype of a mobile-phone based veteran peer-mentor support system called iPeer. The mobile technology facilitates real-time behavioral data collection from the participating veteran mentees. Each mentee receives a behavioral survey twice a week. A report on the mentee's survey response is then presented to the veteran mentor. As a result this system facilitates remote tracking of mental-health conditions. Our primary goal is to monitor the social functioning and risk taking behaviors of the veterans trying to readjust into social life. These behaviors are considered to be indications of difficulties adjusting to civilian life, and in more extreme cases, mental illness like anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [1].

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