Contagious Conversations: Serving Those Who Served

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death for Americans overall, rising 33 percent between 1999 and 2019. Sadly, veterans and military populations have a higher risk for suicide. In the latest episode of our Contagious Conversations podcast, we discuss the crisis of veteran suicide, the steps being taken to offer support to veterans and the impact of community-based approaches to veteran suicide prevention.

I was joined for this conversation by Nicola Winkel, project director for the Arizona Coalition for Military Families, a nationally recognized public-private partnership focused on building Arizona's statewide capacity to care for, serve and support service members, veterans and their families and communities. In her role, Nicola oversees the coalition’s Be Connected Program, a support ecosystem for service members, veterans and their families. Winkel is also the spouse of a veteran herself and has more than 20 years experience in nonprofit program development and implementation.

Be Connected is a statewide public/private partnership focused on upstream prevention for Arizona's 500,000 service members, veterans and their families. Be Connected is a partnership between the Arizona Coalition for Military Families, Governor's Office of Youth, Faith and Family, Arizona Department of Veterans' Services, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, AHCCCS and other key public and private sector organizations. 

Winkel and I discuss the importance of community-based veteran-serving organizations (VSOs), which work to build connections within the veteran and veteran-serving community and address issues faced by veterans and military families before they reach a crisis point. Over the past five years, the CDC Foundation has supported a variety of projects related to veteran suicide prevention. One of these efforts, the Veteran Suicide Prevention Evaluation (VSPE) project, supports VSOs in using evaluation to build evidence on the effectiveness of veteran suicide programs. In this episode, Winkel discusses the impact of this effort and the benefit to veterans in her community.

I found my discussion with Winkel to be troubling but also hopeful, and I encourage everyone to tune in and learn more about this critical issue that affects our veterans, and how we can work together to prevent and reduce veteran suicide by reaching those at risk before they are in crisis.

To learn more about the CDC Foundation’s efforts to prevent veteran’s suicide, go to www.CDCFoundation.org and search veteran suicide. If you are or know of a veteran who is experiencing a crisis, dial 988 then press 1 for help.