Mission Connect Vermont

Vermont Governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and their Families

Suicide is a national public health concern that affects all Americans, including Service Members, Veterans, and their Families (SMVF), and those who love them.

Vermont’s team of dedicated partners work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and with U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to identify innovative ways to deliver support and care to Service Members, Veterans, and Family Members whenever and wherever they need it. We do this by using a public health approach, combining community-based prevention strategies and evidence-based clinical interventions.

Everyone has a role to play in preventing suicide. We can all make a difference. Join us in making our community healthier and safer for Service Members, Veterans, and their Families.

Vermont Team

With the support of Governor Phil Scott and Adjutant General Gregory Knight, members of state government, the Vermont National Guard, the Veterans Administration, healthcare organizations, community partners and military family members have come together to form the Vermont Governor’s Challenge team: Mission Connect Vermont. In partnership with the VA and the SAMHSA, the Governor’s Challenge brings together teams from states all over the country to support Service Members, Veteran, and their Families.

Mission Connect Vermont is developing a strategic action plan to prevent SMVF suicide across the state. Through the partnership with VA and SAMHSA, we receive tools and technical assistance to get this done.

While we focus on education, information and intervention as core components of Vermont’s overall suicide prevention efforts, critical to our success with Mission Connect Vermont is our focus on the specific challenges facing the SMVF population. We recognize the unique needs of SMVF – both during and after active deployment and as serving members of our Army and Air National Guard- and we want to build a system to prevent lives lost to death by suicide.

Vermont Plan

  • Identify Service Members, Veterans, and their Families wherever they are, and screen for suicide risk

  • Promote connectedness and improve care transitions, making it easy to locate and access necessary resources to support our SMVF

  • Increase lethal means safety and safety planning through a targeted educational approach for health care professionals and access to the needed safety strategies

Accomplishments To Date

  • Convened a team of over 25 policy-level decision makers and stakeholders that are working together to implement suicide prevention best policies and practices for SMVF.

  • Developing a Vermont Ask the Question toolkit to implement a common definition and practice to identify SMVF served to determine eligibility for services, identify risk factors and get a complete medical history, and to provide information on resources

  • Developing a statewide resource map to promote connectedness by increasing awareness of existing resources for SMVF to facilitate access to care across systems.

  • Implementing in-hospital outreach and education to increase the use of safety plans in Emergency Departments and distributed over 800 gunlocks.

For more information on this initiative, contact Vermont Governor’s Challenge Team Lead Monica Hutt (monica.hutt@vermont.gov), Christopher Allen (christopher.m.allen@vermont.gov), or Scott Detweiler (john.s.detweiler.civ@army.mil).

Mission Connect Vermont has three requests for providers:

  1. Identifying service members, veterans, and their family members

“Have you or a family member ever served in the Military?”

One question can make a big difference.

Why Ask The Question:

Healthcare professionals encounter veterans, service members, and military families, but they don't always know it. Veterans do not always identify themselves. They can be proud and stoic, and tend to be more comfortable helping others than asking for help themselves. They may minimize the effect of military service on their health, which can lead to missed diagnoses and incomplete treatment. The only way to be sure to find out about their military service – and its relationship to their health – is to ASK!

Care for those who serve by:

  • Building critical rapport with a reluctant patient who served.

  • Understanding the relationship between military experiences and medical symptoms.

  • Collaborating effectively with military-veteran healthcare providers.

Resources for Providers:

  • Veteran Healthcare Pocket Card (contact NAME, EMAIL, to order printed pocket cards for your facility)

  • Ask The Question (ATQ) Provider Toolkit (coming soon!)

  • Grand Rounds Presentation

2. Promote Connectedness and Improve Care Transitions

As critical as it is to accurately identify SMVF, Mission Connect Vermont recognizes that safety planning and connection to supports and services is a crucial next step.

The Governor’s Challenge is Developing an interactive resource map that will enable a user-friendly experience so that resources can be easily identified, by geographic area, in the privacy of an office or at home, at any time.

More interactive than a list of clinicians, the map will offer information on location, office hours, areas of specialization, contact information, and payment parameters in a easy-to-search format to facilitate connection to clinical supports.

The interactive resource map will be hosted by a clinical partner—the Center for Health and Learning —and maintained for accuracy in partnership with listed clinicians.

Current Resource Lists:

3. Increase lethal means safety and safety planning

Service members, Veterans, and their family members are at increased risk for suicide. In Vermont, veterans are three times more likely to die by suicide than any other Vermonter. 78% of veterans who die by suicide use a firearm.  This doesn’t mean that preventing suicide deaths is impossible. Suicide risk actually increases and then decreases over a short window of time. This means that lethal means and safety planning are critical skills to help people survive the short-window of time when there is greater danger of acting on suicidal feelings.

The Governor’s Challenge is presenting Grand Rounds to emergency departments and inpatient units across the state to educate care providers on the unique risks and safety planning needs for Veterans, service members, and their families . The training details the steps of the Stanley Brown Safety Plan and provides an overview of the lethal means that are most commonly used in suicide attempts, as well as such as resources to prevent deaths by these means, such as gun safety strategies and the safe storage of medications.

Resources:

If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of suicide dial or text 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org, for confidential support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

If you are a Service Member, Veteran, or Family Member Dial 988 then Press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255 for the Military and Veterans Crisis Line.

For more information on suicide prevention resources in Vermont, please visit: facingsuicideVT.com
For more information on firearm safety storage and gunlocks, please visit: GunSafeVT.org