Why the Women Veteran Wellsiliency® Weekend Matters — and Why It Matters Now
Women veterans are not defined by risk statistics. They are defined by contribution.
Across military and civilian environments, women veterans consistently demonstrate leadership capabilities that strengthen mission readiness, team effectiveness, and long-term organizational performance. Research from military and defense-aligned sources highlights that women in uniform bring distinct strengths that enhance adaptability, ethical decision-making, and cohesion in complex, high-pressure systems¹.
Women veterans are especially known for excelling in:
Adaptive, systems-level leadership, balancing execution with human impact¹
Emotional intelligence and situational awareness, supporting calm decision-making under pressure²
Cross-functional communication and bridge-building, often serving as translators between command, peers, and stakeholders¹
Ethical, service-oriented leadership, grounded in accountability and purpose beyond self-interest¹
These capabilities are not incidental. They are shaped by military training, lived experience, and the reality of leading in environments where women often navigate visibility, credibility, and inclusion simultaneously.
And yet, despite these contributions, women veterans are frequently expected to continue performing at a high level without parallel investment in recovery, regulation, resources, and whole-person support.
That gap — between contribution and care — is where the data tells a more concerning story.
The Scope of the Issue
Women veterans are one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. veteran population³.
More than 2.1 million women veterans currently live in the United States, a number that continues to rise as more women transition out of military service³
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has identified women veterans as requiring targeted, gender-informed suicide-prevention and mental health support, underscoring a growing gap between need and access⁴
The outcomes of that gap are sobering.
Compared to non-veteran women:
Women veterans face significantly higher suicide risk, with age-adjusted suicide rates approximately 92 percent higher⁵
Between 2020 and 2021, the suicide rate among women veterans increased by 24.1 percent, nearly four times the increase seen among male veterans⁶
In 2022, the unadjusted suicide rate for female veterans was 13.5 per 100,000⁷
Mental health data further reinforces this reality:
Approximately 24 percent of women veterans receiving VA care have been diagnosed with PTSD, compared to about 14 percent of male veterans⁸
Research also shows elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and repeat suicide attempts among women veterans⁹
These outcomes do not reflect a lack of resilience. They reflect systems that were not designed with women veterans in mind.
Why This Event. Why Now.
The Women Veteran Wellsiliency® Weekend serves women veterans who are navigating leadership, service, and life beyond the uniform - supporting sustainable performance and embodied leadership at the intersection of resilience and wellbeing.
This is not a clinical intervention. And it is not a traditional wellness retreat.
It is a preventative, restorative, leadership-centered experience designed to help women veterans recalibrate out of survival mode and realign with themselves, their bodies, and their next chapter of leadership and life.
Research consistently identifies connection, nervous system regulation, purpose, and belonging as protective factors against long-term distress. Yet many women veterans leave service without access to spaces that intentionally cultivate these conditions in a gender-responsive way.
This weekend creates that space.
Why Wellsiliency®
Wellsiliency® is grounded in a simple but often overlooked truth:
You can be strong, capable, and successful — and still be operating in survival mode.
Leadership without wellbeing doesn’t just fail to sustain performance. It actively dysregulates leaders - undermining decision-making and capacity.
Traditional leadership development trains what leaders think and do. Wellsiliency® develops how leaders operate - using a Whole-Self Intelligence™ approach that builds regulated, embodied leadership for better decision-making and performance under pressure.
For women veterans, this approach is especially critical. Many have mastered endurance, adaptability, and mission focus. What is often missing is the opportunity - and permission - to rest, regulate, reconnect, and lead from wholeness rather than hyper-vigilance.
Recalibration is not about doing less. It is about doing life and leadership differently.
Why the Presenting and Facilitation Team Matters
The Women Veteran Wellsiliency® Weekend is facilitated by a team of women veterans whose combined experience spans military service, workforce and leadership development, nonprofit leadership, wellbeing science, governance, and veteran advocacy.
Together, this facilitation team brings decades of lived experience and evidence-based practice into a trauma-aware, strengths-based container - creating a retreat experience whose depth and impact far exceed the price of admission.
A Call to Sponsors and Partners
Women veterans have given their leadership, resilience, and service to this country. Support should not end when the uniform comes off.
We invite organizations, employers, foundations, and individual partners to sponsor participants or cohorts for the Women Veteran Wellsiliency® Weekend. Sponsorship directly expands access to a preventative, restorative experience that strengthens wellbeing, leadership capacity, and long-term resilience.
To receive the Sponsorship Opportunities and Partnership options, please contact:
Because honoring service means investing in wellbeing and leadership capacity. And when women veterans are well, they lead better - for all of us.
References
Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. (2020). Women in the military: Leadership, readiness, and integration. U.S. Department of Defense. https://dacowits.defense.gov/Reports/
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2023). Women veterans and mental health: Leadership, stress, and resilience. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/docs/Women_Veterans_Fact_Sheet_508.pdf
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2023). Women veterans: Facts and statistics. https://www.womenshealth.va.gov/materials-and-resources/facts-and-statistics.asp
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2024). Women veterans suicide prevention fact sheet. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/docs/Women_Veterans_Fact_Sheet_508.pdf
Hoffmire, C. A., et al. (2025). Suicide among women veterans compared to non-veteran women. Journal of Psychiatric Research. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395625006211
Disabled American Veterans. (2024). New report examines mental health among women veterans. https://www.dav.org/learn-more/news/2024/new-dav-report-examines-mental-health-among-women-veterans/
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2024). 2024 national veteran suicide prevention annual report. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2024/2024-Annual-Report-Part-2-of-2_508.pdf
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2023). PTSD in veterans. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp
Monteith, L. L., et al. (2020). Suicide risk and mental health among women veterans. National Library of Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7217324/
