Suicide Prevention

Goal leaders

Matthew Miller

Director

Suicide Prevention Program, Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (VA)

To achieve

VA is meaningfully contributing to whole of government and community-based efforts to target an overall 10% reduction in Veteran suicide rate from 2019 to 2024, with decreases in the long term of 3% annually by 2028, through enhancement of programs and training focused on community interventions. To help achieve this, VA will concentrate on non-VA providers who often lack training on specific suicide reduction tools for Veterans.

By September 30, 2023, the VA will:

Provide opportunities to Community care network (CCN) providers for training in suicide risk identification, lethal means safety (LMS) and safety planning. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) will offer trainings to 100% of the CCN providers who are signed-up for VHA communication and take actions to achieve an increase of 10% in FY23 over FY22 baseline training completions.
Achieve a 10-fold increase in the number of community providers, including but beyond the CCN, who have completed lethal means safety training within localized suicide hotspots identified, using CDC and VA provisional data.
Increase by 100%, gun lock distribution to community-based providers.

Progress Updates