If you’re having thoughts of suicide, you may feel isolated and alone and think no one understands what you’re going through. There are people who care about you and can help you through difficult times. Many of those people are ready and available to help at each of VA’s 172 VA medical centers.
What is a suicide prevention coordinator (SPC)?
An SPC is someone in your area specially trained and dedicated to finding you the support you need, including counseling and other services. You may see them staffing an information table at a local event or you may have even already connected with one directly. They are your guide to VA resources, and you can find them by visiting our local resources website.
On any given day, SPCs work outside VA in your local community, attending events and collaborating with community groups to share information about VA resources. They work directly with Veterans inside VA facilities, providing details about available VA resources and how to access them, ensuring Veterans at high risk for suicide receive appropriate care.
SPCs are also an important part of Veterans Crisis Line support. If you Dial 988 then Press 1, chat (VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat), or text 838255 to the Veterans Crisis Line and ask the responder for additional support, the responder can help you schedule a call with your local SPC as early as the following day.
How SPCs support Veterans
SPCs create a safe space for Veterans to discuss challenges and provide them with choices to get individualized care. SPCs can:
- Help provide basic information, such as where to go for an appointment, what to expect when you get treatment and how to communicate with your providers
- Help remove barriers to getting care, like transportation, access to a phone or internet connectivity.
- Ensure you’re receiving proper care and act as a personal portal to VA by helping you navigate and coordinate care. Your SPC can help you schedule health appointments. If you move, your local SPC will make sure the nearest SPC to your new home is aware of your treatment plan. And your SPC can help you make a safety plan to help keep you safe in the event of a crisis.
All contact with SPCs is controlled by you. They are there to work with you wherever you are to connect you to support.
Messages from suicide prevention coordinators
For Veterans who may be hesitant about seeking support, I encourage you to give one of our SPCs a chance to help. If you take the first step to reaching out, they’ll be there to listen and, if you choose, make a plan to connect you to the right resources.
Here are some additional encouraging messages from SPCs:
- “VA is there to help all Veterans. Every Veteran feels that they are not the one the care is meant for. It is meant for all of you together. ”
- “You are not ‘taking the spot of someone who needs it more’ because the more people who get services here, the more services we can offer down the road.”
- “Reaching out and asking for help is difficult. Sometimes you just try it and see if it fits your needs or interests.
- “Reaching out is the hardest step. We can only hear you if you tell us what’s going on. One small piece at a time.”
SPCs work in the community and with Veterans directly to make sure everyone from Veterans, their friends and families, caregivers and providers know about VA resources. They’re here for you if you ever need them.
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Most oif these “counselers” probly don’t even know what Suicide even means, as VA just hires people, puts them into positions untrained and unqualified, so how are we to know if they are even qualified for this job???
Best guess? The SPC’ call the cops on those seeking a convo.
You know, I get why the high rate of veteran’s suicide. I am in my fifth month of being a care carer for my 80% disable Navy veteran brother. He is not even close to what a troubled vet is going through. I can see a vet with no caretaker or weak one to throw up their hands and call it quits.
It was/is an absolute nightmare dealing with the bureaucracy, duplications, ineptness, and just plain laziness at the local VA hospital. The patient advocate is a joke. The caretaker program is just money wasted on social workers with no idea how the systems works and where to get help.
Here is one example out of many. My brother entered the VA hospital and was there 5 weeks mostly due to the inability to local a nursing home. Eventually he is admitted to a facility. and there for about three weeks. Everyone in the system knew where he was…except transportation. Now he has been picked up at the nursing home by the VA and taken for doctor’s visit already. So I am sitting with him waiting for a second pickup to return for another visit. No transportation, we call, finally get through and the ambulance has been sent to his old address 115 miles in the opposite direction. How much did that cost the tax paypayers and how many times is that being repeated throughout the VA system?
I could go on and on. Social workers are another sore spot. While we were in the hospital in last few weeks when we didn’t know what was going on and where we going to end, no social worker. Un responsive, leave number over and over. I walk down to their office and everyone of sitting talking drinking coffee and non-caring as one could be.
Physical therapy. A useless and nonproductive and expensive care My brother has Parkinsons, bad heart and vein collapse. He needs PT all the time. He was first assigned 31 days of PT, what is that all about. The 32nd day he’s good, he’s well, of course not. That is the most stupid concept of medical treatment I have ever heard. The explanation, “we only assign PT for a certain number of days” I said he needs it every day, no one listens.
Until the VA decides to make the vet a priority, rather than heaven for lazy, non caring, under educated, personnel your suicide rate will always be high. There is one thing for sure, if no one cares for war veteran on the outside, there is one thing for damn sure, nobody cares on the inside.
Expect law enforcement to come to your door.