U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough asked members of the Arkansas community and faith-based groups to join forces in the prevention of veteran suicide.

September was national Suicide Prevention Month, but McDonough said the VA will focus on preventing the suicide of veterans until the number is zero. He told those attending a day-long suicide awareness training they can help by reaching out to veterans who are experiencing mental health crises.

McDonough visited the U of A Global Campus facility in Bentonville on Sept. 26 to draw attention to the issue and to emphasize community partnerships. The Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville partnered with Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System in Little Rock to present the training on topics such as handling crisis situations, intimate partner violence, moral injury, VA resources and services, new laws expanding veteran benefits, the role of peer specialists and community reintegration.

"It's one thing for a vet to hear about VA services from us," McDonough said during about 20 minutes of remarks before a panel of Arkansas VA officials answered questions. "It's entirely different for them to hear about VA services from you.

"You are the people in veterans' lives and communities every day," he continued. "You pray with them, you break bread with them, you work with them, you spend time with them. You are the people they know and love and trust, so a recommendation from you could go a long way toward convincing a skeptical veteran, maybe with well-earned skepticism, to give the VA another try. Doing that, well, that can change their life."

In 2020, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among veterans under the age of 45, according to the 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report published by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

Suicide is preventable, McDonough said, but it takes groups working together to save lives and change the narrative that says a veteran who seeks help is a victim, broken or weak. It's that narrative that is broken, he said.

"It takes all of us, all of our collective heart and soul and will alongside the very best evidence-based solutions," he said. "With your help, we're fighting to remove the stigma of mental health, the stigma of talking about suicide and the stigma that keeps veterans from reaching out. I know you know the enormous power of reaching out. There is enormous power in bringing the veterans we serve into contact with a real person. There is enormous power in linking them up with someone who is ready and willing to help them contend with any crisis."

McDonough called rolling out a new, abbreviated suicide prevention hotline number — 988 and press 1 — one of several new veteran-centric innovative solutions. Since the launch last year, the hotline has fielded over 1 million calls, texts and chat messages with an average time to answer of just under 10 seconds, he said. A veteran crisis center staff member assesses the veteran's need and uses geolocation to send the call to a local VA facility to respond, he said.

The three-digit dialing code routes callers to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Last year, the National Suicide Prevention Line number was changed from 10 digits to the shorter version. People can call, text or chat with the 988 lifeline 24 hours a day, seven days a week to be connected to trained crisis counselors across the United States, according to the lifeline website.

If a veteran needs mental health services immediately, they will be provided that day, McDonough said. A new law called the COMPACT Act (Veterans Comprehensive Prevention, Access to Care and Treatment) provides that a veteran, regardless of whether they are receiving VA benefits, can go to any emergency department for service and the VA will cover the cost, he said.

April Eilers, public affairs officer for the VA hospital in Fayetteville, said the VA's goals of the training initiative in Bentonville — titled "Faith-Based Community Convening for the Support of Service Members, Veterans and their Families" — included not only educating service providers but also collaborating with the community.

"It's not any one group's responsibility," she said, about efforts to prevent veteran suicide. "This is a community effort. We wanted to bring the community together and share knowledge and best practices. We are banding together as a united front to help veterans."

About 100 people gathered, roughly half in person and half online, for the suicide prevention training at the Global Campus Professional and Workforce Development facility inside the Collaborative on Fifth Street in Bentonville. The space opened for training events in 2021 to bring together people in the community and industry to address big and small issues, said Cheryl Murphy, vice provost for distance education at the Global Campus.

"Veteran suicide is a big problem, and we are thrilled to provide a venue that pulls individuals together to plan a cohesive course to assist veteran suicide prevention," Murphy said. "The space served one of its important purposes today - to bring the community together to work on solving big problems. We hope others will see potential opportunities to collaborate in this space."

Angie Waliski, who is with the Research Health Scientist Center for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, and is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Services at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, has received grants for her work in veterans' suicide prevention that formed the basis of the training. A project she directs, Prevention, Recovery & Emergency Preparedness: Empowering Veterans to Promote Community Resilience, received funding from the VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention to assist in the implementation and evaluation of community-partnered events.

Participants in the training took home a packet of information including points of contact in several areas to help them better serve veterans.

"Our project focuses on implementation and evaluation of community engagement in suicide prevention activities," Waliski said. "We listen to what our community partners say."