Board Member Profile: David HoleWinski

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Dave Holewinski has built his career from a genuine desire to serve his community. His extensive social work background, along with his drive to make a difference, makes him an incredibly valued and respected member of the Veterans Defense Project (“VDP”) Board.

This desire to help others emerged at a young age. Growing up in Northeastern Wisconsin, he attributes his interest in the social work profession to time spent with a close cousin with Down Syndrome. Eventually moving to the Twin Cities area for college he pursued both a Bachelor’s degree and Masters of Social Work from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

This provided experience across the varied domains of social work: working with traumatic brain injury, managing counselors providing inpatient drug and alcohol programming, and, during graduate school, working with family and immigration law while also providing mental health therapy.

After graduation, he was hired at the Veterans Affairs (“VA”) Medical Center in Minneapolis. Dave’s first role at the VA Hospital was to provide mental health and addiction therapy in the addiction disorders clinic, where he stayed for two years. After that, Dave moved to the psychiatry partial hospital (“PPH”) program, where he worked in intensive day treatment for mental health issues.

In 2011, Dave became the first Veterans Justice Outreach Specialist for the VA, working with Justice-involved veterans. He was able to develop eight Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs), and provide treatment recommendations to those courts. Case management — through the VA — was another key to the success of integrating VTCs across Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. The biggest challenges were building an understanding of the connection between military trauma and the offenses committed by veterans, and the subsequent recognition of the value for specialty courts over other specialty treatment courts. Additionally, he emphasized the need for best practices to inform the establishment of these VTCs.

Dave left his VJO role in 2019 to take on the role of Suicide Prevention Program Manager in the VA system. This work consists of supporting veterans involved in VA care who are at a higher risk for suicide, including the 988 Veterans Crisis Line, and establishing grief and loss support groups as the VA implements public health strategies to address and prevent veteran suicide.

Brock Hunter and Ryan Else, VDP’s founders, connected Dave through a work group that laid the groundwork for what became the Veteran’s Restorative Justice Act (“VRJA”). Dave served four years as a Member-at-Large and recently stepped into the role of Vice-Chair, working with the Nominations Committee and filling in for Board Chair, Hank Shea.

Dave is proud to see the VRJA expand nationally, especially when these veterans experience significant success. An added benefit is that veterans also experience the full range of the VA’s services, regardless of access to the VTCs.

Two long-term goals he has for the VDP are 1) to capitalize on the VRJA and reach more veterans in rural Minnesota, and 2) to continue expanding the VRJA on a national level. The collaboration with like-minded people on the VDP makes more of this possible.

In his free time, Dave enjoys spending time with his two dogs — on walks and swimming at family lake cabins — where the quiet and time spent with family and friends offers a reprieve from daily life.