VA grant funding helping prevent Veteran suicides

Last year, through the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program (SSG Fox SPGP), VA awarded $52.5 million to 80 organizations that provide or coordinate a range of suicide prevention services for Veterans and their families.

With the next round of awards being announced later this year, the impact of the inaugural grant program is already being felt in communities across the country.

One of our inaugural grant recipients was the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the third-largest Indian nation in the United States, which used its grant program funding to launch a community program for Native American Veterans called Warrior Wellness.

This program offers Veteran support through case management, VA benefits assistance and income assistance to Veterans and their families. Warrior Wellness also offers non-traditional services to Veterans seeking treatment and community, such as hiking, animal-assisted and equine services, trail riding, gardening, fishing, family retreats and cultural options like drum circle recovery groups. Veterans from any tribe or military branch are eligible to participate in the services and events offered.

In a Choctaw Nation newsletter from January, Program Coordinator Courtney Trent described how the grant program funding helps the Choctaw Nation serve local Veterans in a new way.

“A lot of non-traditional services that we haven’t had available for our Veterans in the past are going to get a lot more accessible. Being one of only 80 organizations awarded the grant means we can provide pivotal services here in southeast Oklahoma for Native American Veterans and their families,” she wrote.

VA Veteran suicide prevention combines partnerships with communities

The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association (APIA), another organization awarded funding through the grant program, is a federally recognized tribal organization of the Aleut people in Alaska. APIA provides a broad spectrum of services throughout the region including health, education, social, psychological, employment and vocational training, and public safety services.

Since receiving VA grant funding last year, APIA has been working to serve local Veterans and bringing methods of suicide prevention and harm reduction to the forefront of its community through an offering of classes at the nearby Vet Center. The Anchorage-based organization offers free weekly trauma-informed yoga sessions and an eight-week Mind-Body Medicine Group. These classes aim to decrease anxiety and create community.

The SSG Fox SPGP reflects VA’s public health approach to Veteran suicide prevention, which combines partnerships with the community to implement tailored, local prevention plans while also focusing on evidence-based clinical strategies for intervention. The program allows VA to prioritize grant awards to organizations that focus on areas with limited access to medical services, rural communities, tribal lands, U.S. territories, areas with a high number or percentage of minority Veterans or women Veterans, or areas with a high number or percentage of calls to the Veterans Crisis Line.

SSG Fox SPGP grant recipients for fiscal year (FY) 2023 will be announced in September 2023. To see the full list of FY22 grantees, click here. For more information on the grant program, visit MentalHealth.VA.gov/ssgfox-grants.