The Gathering to Prevent Suicide Among American Indian & Alaska Native Service Members, Veterans, & their Families

Matt [Miller, Dir. VA Office of Suicide Prevention], thanks for that kind introduction and for the opportunity to join the team here this morning to kick off Day 2 of this important Gathering. More importantly, thank you for the critical work you and your team in the VA Office of Suicide Prevention are doing, every day. It’s work just like this that’s making important differences in people’s lives.

Good morning, everyone. It’s an honor to be here on Tribal land, the ancestral lands of the Ojibwe and Dakota. All this country is Tribal land. And this is my home, Minnesota, so I want to say Aaniin and Hau. I’m proud to be from this state where there are 11 federally recognized Tribes. This land, according to the Ojibwe people, is where food grows on water.

So many people to recognize, and to thank today. Cicely [Burrows-McElwain]—good to see you again. Anytime I go where goodness is happening, there’s Cicely. Let me also recognize Stacey Owens and all our SAMHSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] partners. And I want to especially acknowledge so many of our partners from the National Indian Health Board, the National Congress of American Indians, the Alaska Native Heritage Center, the Trickster Native Connections Cultural Center, and members of VA’s Tribal Advisory Committee who are doing work that’s invaluable to me, to VA.

Let me recognize members of our country’s newest Veteran Service Organization, the National American Indian Veterans, as well as Tribal leaders, Tribal elders, and all Veterans here this morning. It’s my honor to be here with you. At VA, we respect you. We respect your Tribal governments. And I reaffirm my deep commitment to our common heritage, to your Tribal sovereignty, and to this important work we’re doing together for Vets, their families, survivors, and caregivers.

Now, this conference, it isn’t your typical conference where we’re unloading a lot of information on you. This conference is about us hearing from all of you. And it’s about getting pen on paper to plan the next steps to take action in helping prevent Veteran suicide among our Native American Veterans. And I’m here this morning for one reason, and that is to commit to you that VA will redouble our efforts to work with you—and with so many others—to bring an end to Veteran suicide. It is the most critical work we can do, our number one clinical priority at VA.

In the past—when I’ve spoken about this work—I’ve talked about budgets and dollars, I’ve talked about demographics and data, and about programs and processes. All that is very important. But dollars and data alone are not sufficient to truly understand this monumental public health issue. So, I’ve taken to talking with survivors, with Veterans and their family members, and those around them who have been directly impacted by suicide. I want to learn from them. I want to hear their stories, their experiences. I want to listen to their advice on how we can better support Service Members and Veterans. And that’s why all of us are here.

We are here to listen. To listen. To listen to you. Because at VA, we haven’t always gotten it right, especially true when it comes to serving Native American and Alaska Native Veterans. That’s why, today, when it comes to serving Tribal communities, our first principle is to listen. So let me give you just a few examples of some innovative work that’s grounded in that first principle—listening.

Listening—it’s really what VA’s Mission Daybreak grand challenge back in 2022 was about. In searching for suicide prevention solutions that can meet the diverse needs of Veterans, we wanted to listen and hear new perspectives. We wanted to find new approaches to bring support to Veterans in their communities that’s meaningful—not meaningful to us at VA, but meaningful and resonant to Service Members, Veterans, and their families.

With the Mission Daybreak challenge, we wanted to get outside of the VA eco-system and echo-chamber, to see what fresh thinking there is when it comes to suicide prevention. And an award-winning social venture group called Televeda won first place in the Mission Daybreak challenge. Televeda’s overarching purpose, their mission—combatting social isolation and loneliness among vulnerable populations. And that’s what Televeda’s web-based application called Hero’s Story aims to do.

If you haven’t heard of Hero’s Story, let me tell you about it. Hero’s Story is an innovative app that’s designed to reach Veteran and Native American communities, to answer their needs. Designing and launching the Hero’s Story app has been grass-roots work. And listening to those they want to serve is Televeda’s organizing principle.

And what they’ve produced—Hero’s Story—is the first Indigenous, community-based online resource to offer Tribal communities traditional mental health interventions like talking circles and storytelling sessions. Hero’s Story offers online peer support groups, indigenous programming, and access to other local Tribal resources in ways that honor customs and traditions in a culturally relevant way.

And because Televeda designed Hero’s Story by listening to Tribal communities—including Navajo Nation, Hopi, Lakota, Pascua Yaqui, and Tohono O’odham—the tools the Hero’s Story app offers answer the community needs. It’s not about what any of us think the community needs. It’s about the resources the community describes, offered in culturally-appropriate ways.

Televeda launched the first phase of Hero’s Story at the Window Rock Tribal Park in Arizona this past May—hand-in-hand with the Navajo Nation. And while it is still early in deployment of the Hero’s Story application, the Bureau Chief of the Arizona Department of Health, Teresa Manygoats, praised Televeda because they “listen intently” and “build trust.” Televeda’s work on Hero’s Story, she said, is a great “example of a public-private partnership that has led to meaningful work in communities.”

And one of Televeda’s most important lessons-learned in their work with Navajo Nation is really important for all of us today. A solution that works for one Tribe, they point out, may not work for another Tribe. And so the Televeda team will tell you—and we know, now—that many solutions are needed, solutions designed in close partnership with those we’re serving: American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans and Tribal community members. 

Many solutions. Solutions tailored by each community. That’s really what the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program is about. Fox grants provide funding to local community organizations, equipping them to provide community-based solutions, solutions they shape to meet the needs of the Veterans they’re serving, meet the needs with effective, more meaningful outreach, suicide prevention services, and connection to VA and community resources.

So rather than funding and pushing VA ready-made programs, local communities provide answers that resonate with and respond to their Veterans and families’ needs.

Now, we have 80 Fox Grant awardees. Twenty-one grantees serve American Indian and Alaska Natives in varying capacities. And three grantees are on Tribal land—the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association in Alaska, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, and the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and Texas, the Choctaw Nation’s Warrior Wellness Program.

Let me tell you about the Choctaw Nation’s Warrior Wellness Program. And you’ll hear more from the program manager, Courtney Trent, in just a little bit. Courtney—where are you? Courtney and the Choctaw Nation launched their Fox-grant-funded Warrior Wellness program less than two years ago during their Choctaw Nation Veterans Day Ceremony. In just under two years, the Warrior Wellness program has grown to serve nearly 200 Vets and their families.

One of Warrior Wellness’s biggest successes is how it’s connected Veterans to Veterans. Once the program was stood up, it’s grown on its own. Families have come together and helped each other. They’ve designed their own support systems. They’ve found battle buddies to support one another. You see, it’s not what any of us might think they need, not what we might impose on them. What’s taken shape, Courtney’s said, are exactly the kind of support systems they need. And that’s meant drum circle recovery groups.

It’s meant peer support and resilience training. It’s meant trauma-focused services and healing. It’s meant family retreats and horseback riding; hiking and fishing; cultural enrichment and income support assistance. These are all healing services that are traditional for the Choctaw community, support systems that help them thrive, instead of just survive, as Courtney’s said.

One very popular program that’s evolved is for women Veterans—Tvshka Ohoyo or the Women Warrior group. The Women Warrior group is providing Choctaw women Veterans powerful connections they need—re-connections and, sometimes, connections to their culture and to each other and, for some, deep healing from trauma. Sergeant Cindy Logan is Choctaw, and she’s just one of the Choctaw women Veterans who has found an important sense of community that she’s longed for in the Women Warrior group.

You see, Cindy’s an M-S-T [Military Sexual Trauma] survivor, and she’s found healing in these traditional practices. “In our Women Warrior group, things just gurgle up,” Cindy’s said. “Things come out. It’s nurturing. It’s uplifting. People who couldn’t speak about M-S-T,” she said, “well, there’s space for all of it. To talk about it is to help us heal.”

And Cindy says that healing she’s found is about much more than the activities, alone. “It’s about working to heal … from the inside, out.” She said, “It’s about learning how to take care of ourselves, so we can move forward … about connection to our Choctaw heritage.”

One of Courtney’s partners at Warrior Wellness is Petty Officer Sandy Stroud, a Navy Vet. Sandy’s been a big part of this growth, this movement, a real leader I’m told, among the women Vets in Warrior Wellness. As Courtney puts it, Sandy is wise. You’ll hear from Sandy later this morning, too. Sandy brings over a quarter-century of experience serving her Tribal members to the Warrior Wellness program.

She says about her fellow Choctaw women Veterans, “We had a connection when we were in service. And that connection,” Sandy says, “is so important. Women Veterans—now we have a shared experience again.” In the Women Warrior group, “We now have a home to come to that we didn’t have before … and a community that we didn’t have before. We recognize each other as a sister.”

And here’s a lesson Sandy shared that we just can’t miss, so important to what we’re about here at this gathering. “What I’ve learned,” Sandy says, “is that the community has the answer … if you’re willing to listen. You can impact incredible change if you can hear the community’s voice in your work.”

And that’s really why all of us are here. To listen. To make sure that as we move forward we’re designing approaches that listen to Tribal communities, models that hear communities’ voices. Hearing communities’ voices, your voices, that’s what all of this is about.

This gathering—it’s a culminating event of everything we’ve learned in so many conversations and listening sessions, so far, hearing communities’ voices. We at VA and SAMHSA have heard from a wide variety of Native subject-matter experts in multiple discussions on suicide prevention for Tribal and Native Veterans. And the listening sessions continued until just last month’s Trickster Cultural Center National Gathering of American Indian Veterans.

So, this work over the last two years, this work to intensify suicide prevention among Native Vets, it’s led us to this deliberate and concerted focus on community as a strength and community-based programs as an antidote to the isolation that so often leads to suicide. It’s a unique strength of Tribes. It’s an important lesson your Native communities can potentially offer to non-Native Vet communities, and that we at VA can incorporate into other programs.

Today—this work is about so much more than just today. It’s about the work ahead after you’re done here. What today is not, what this gathering isn’t, is any sort of ending. It is not the end. It’s not the end of our dialogue or our work together. There is so much work left to do to build, or to re-build, trust with Vets and with their Tribal communities, to find ways ahead and, ultimately, answers that meet the diverse needs of Native American and Alaska Native Veterans, Servicemembers, and their families.  

Thank all of you for walking with us on this journey—for guiding us, for showing us the ways. Thank you for trusting us enough to be here, to continue bringing your voices and perspectives to the table. Your recommendations will be the foundation on which work in the years ahead will be built. Your spirit will enliven it. You will always be a part of it.

Thank you for welcoming me this morning. May God bless all our Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors.