Safeguard Veterans

Challenge

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has made significant advances in improving suicide care, resulting in reduced risk for Veterans in VA care. However, 60% of Veterans who died by suicide were not connected with VA services in the current or previous year, and many community providers are not well prepared to serve the unique needs of Veterans.

Safeguard Veterans aims to improve community-based suicide prevention services for Veterans through bundling evidence-based training and systems change, while also better connecting service providers to each other. The goal is to create a strong Veteran system of care where Veterans can easily access supports where and when they need them, whether in the community or with VA. The project is testing this approach in six pilot communities, and will deliver a Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan to inform potential scaling nationwide by the VA.

Key Activities

The project is carrying out the following activities:

• Test the feasibility of 13 different initiatives to improve community-based Veteran suicide support across clinical, crisis, social services, faith-based and other sectors.
• Provide extensive training and technical assistance to community partners in six pilot communities to strengthen their Veteran services and interconnections.
• Engage local coalitions in the pilot communities to convene key partners in strengthening the local Veteran system of care.
• Develop a robust Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan to provide a roadmap for future VA scaling of community-based Veteran suicide prevention initiatives.

Our Impact

• The project will build and sustain increased organizational and community capacity to serve Veterans through training and technical assistance in each of the 6 pilot sites.
• The study will provide new insights into how VA can support community-based suicide prevention services for Veterans outside the VA system.