The Transition Assistance Program (TAP) is a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) led program that provides information and training to ensure service members transitioning from active-duty are prepared for their next step in life - whether pursuing additional education, finding a job in the public or private sector, or starting their own business.
Every year, approximately 200,000 men and women leave U.S. military service and return to life as civilians, a process known as the military to civilian transition.
The Transition Assistance Program (TAP) provides information, tools and training to ensure service members and their spouses are prepared for the next step in civilian life.
Military to civilian transition occurs within a complex and dynamic network of relationships, programs, services, and benefits, which includes transition planning and assistance efforts by individual Service branches, the interagency TAP partnership, and community resources delivered through local government, private industry, and nonprofit organizations.
In addition to the Military Departments, TAP is the result of an partnership between the Departments of Defense (DoD), Labor (DOL), Veterans Affairs (VA), Homeland Security (DHS), Education (ED), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
The mandatory components of TAP are applicable for all service members, including National Guard and Reservists transitioning or being released from active duty, after serving 180 continuous days or more in accordance with Title 10, United States Code, Chapter 58.
History
For the first 150 years of our nation’s history, the government delivered veterans’ benefits and incidental medical care after military service, but largely left service members to navigate their transition on their own. After World War I, Congress established a new system of benefits that included disability compensation and insurance for service members and veterans. During World War II, the government implemented the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the original GI Bill®.
Over the next four decades, this “bundle of benefits” approach to transition assistance gave transitioning service members and their families support. In the early 1990s, as the U.S. again faced a massive demobilization of the military due to planned post-Cold War reduction that coincided with the end of the Gulf War, Congress recognized the need for a different approach to transition assistance.
The FY 1991 NDAA authorized a program of comprehensive transition assistance counseling for separating service members and their spouses.
In 2011, the Veteran unemployment rate was 12.1 percent, considerably higher than the non-Veteran unemployment rate of 8.7 percent.
This was fueled by the lingering effects of the 2008 global economic crisis along with unique employment challenges faced by Post-9/11 Veterans. Congress responded to this multifaceted crisis by passing the Veterans Opportunity to Work (VOW) to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, which was signed by President Barack Obama on November 21, 2011.
In addition to pre-separation counseling, the Act mandated participation of all eligible transitioning Service members in the previously optional TAP employment, benefits, and job training assistance sessions.
In response to the VOW Act, interagency partners redesigned TAP into a cohesive, modular, outcomes-based program that standardized transition opportunities, services, and training to better prepare the nation’s Service members to achieve their post military career goals.
Since the VOW Act, the interagency partners, along with other federal agencies, continue to expand transition assistance support based on the ever changing needs of transitioning service members and their families.�
The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19 NDAA) became public law on August 13, 2018. The bill authorized many changes to the Department of Defense (DoD) Transition Assistance Program (TAP), to be implemented in 2019. The purpose of the program will remain the same, however the TAP process reflected its new requirements beginning October 1, 2019.
Military-Civilian Transition Office
The Military-Civilian Transition Office, formerly the Transition to Veterans Program Office, merged with the Office of Reintegration Programs, the policy office responsible for the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program in January 2020.
MCTO provides policy and program oversight for the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) and the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program (YRRP).