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Q&A with Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen to discuss how together, we will prevent suicide for Service members and Veterans. Submit questions below!
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Join a live Q&A with Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD and Travis Bartholomew to discuss how together, we will prevent suicide for Service members and Veterans. Submit your questions below!
Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen-
Dr. Van Dahlen, a licensed clinical psychologist, was appointed to lead the PREVENTS Task Force in July 2019. She is the Founder of Give an Hour, a national nonprofit that provides free mental health care to those in need including service members, Veterans and their families. In 2012, she was named to TIME magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Dr. Van Dahlen is an expert on the psychological impact of war and a thought leader in mobilizing constituencies to create large system change. She is widely recognized for her work in changing the culture associated with mental health. A licensed clinical psychologist who practiced in the Washington, D.C. area for over 20 years, she received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland in 1991.
PREVENTS Background-
Executive Order 13861: Signed on March 5, 2019, the President's Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) is a call to action to amplify and accelerate the progress in addressing the Veteran suicide epidemic in our Nation. While there have been other efforts to address suicide prevention, this is a cabinet-level, inter-agency effort charged with developing the first federally coordinated national public health strategy to address suicide.
The goal of PREVENTS is to prevent suicide — among not just Veterans but all Americans. By adopting a holistic public health approach, PREVENTS is acting on the knowledge that suicide prevention is everyone’s business, and that by working together, locally and nationally, we can prevent suicide.
PREVENTS is building on the critical successes of suicide prevention pioneers and agencies working with Service members and Veterans. The PREVENTS Task Force is partnering with stakeholders from multiple sectors, including nonprofits, state and local organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and government leaders, to implement best practices to improve health and prevent suicide.
PREVENTS recently launched REACH, the Nation’s largest public health campaign with the central message that suicide is preventable. The REACH campaign recognizes that to prevent suicide, we must reach beyond what we have done before– including the way we think about, talk about, and address emotional pain and suffering. The REACH campaign is for everyone because we all have risk and protective factors that we need to recognize and understand.
Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen-
Dr. Van Dahlen, a licensed clinical psychologist, was appointed to lead the PREVENTS Task Force in July 2019. She is the Founder of Give an Hour, a national nonprofit that provides free mental health care to those in need including service members, Veterans and their families. In 2012, she was named to TIME magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Dr. Van Dahlen is an expert on the psychological impact of war and a thought leader in mobilizing constituencies to create large system change. She is widely recognized for her work in changing the culture associated with mental health. A licensed clinical psychologist who practiced in the Washington, D.C. area for over 20 years, she received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland in 1991.
PREVENTS Background-
Executive Order 13861: Signed on March 5, 2019, the President's Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) is a call to action to amplify and accelerate the progress in addressing the Veteran suicide epidemic in our Nation. While there have been other efforts to address suicide prevention, this is a cabinet-level, inter-agency effort charged with developing the first federally coordinated national public health strategy to address suicide.
The goal of PREVENTS is to prevent suicide — among not just Veterans but all Americans. By adopting a holistic public health approach, PREVENTS is acting on the knowledge that suicide prevention is everyone’s business, and that by working together, locally and nationally, we can prevent suicide.
PREVENTS is building on the critical successes of suicide prevention pioneers and agencies working with Service members and Veterans. The PREVENTS Task Force is partnering with stakeholders from multiple sectors, including nonprofits, state and local organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and government leaders, to implement best practices to improve health and prevent suicide.
PREVENTS recently launched REACH, the Nation’s largest public health campaign with the central message that suicide is preventable. The REACH campaign recognizes that to prevent suicide, we must reach beyond what we have done before– including the way we think about, talk about, and address emotional pain and suffering. The REACH campaign is for everyone because we all have risk and protective factors that we need to recognize and understand.
Suicide
Mental Health
PTSD
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
Health
Responses: 70
Is the VA looking to incorporate any newly approved pharmaceutical therapies to the formulary that supports depression or suicidal ideations?
SP5 Dan Peach
When are we going to get the va to admit that shell shock battle fatigue and several others are all just another word for ptsd and not parinoid schizophrenic episodes
My comment joins dec.15 1974 on delay program 6 month to finish high school sent to basic training as Reserves lost out GI bill when active 1978 while going to basic training to FT.KNOX start My PTSD by removing body from a C31 aircraft coming from Vietnam july 1975. So after 30 with a service connection for my amputation for only 30% after 20 yrs fighting and denial for PTSD over 5 time get only medical help with a psych once a month with heavy medication and to had to resigned from a state job of 14 yrs. But THE VTC with can not do anything for you but maybe increase on your device connection to HIGHTER REVIEW I HAVE SPEND OVET $ 1700.00 trying together help. But I will serve my country even if I'm Puerto Rican.
I served 6 years in the army and after I was discharged back to civilian life I tried to commit suicide by shooting myself in the chest with a 22 caliber pistol, and somehow I survived, but I am disabled the rest of my life. And can't get the V.A. to help me.
MSgt Gilbert Jones
Have you gone to one of the military organizations for assistance? I tried fighting the VA on my on for 16 years and got no where. I finally went to the DAV and with their help I now receive 100% disability.
Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD
Thank you for reaching out to PREVENTS and sharing your experience. We know this can often be a difficult topic to share with others and we appreciate you sharing it with us. One of the main goals of PREVENTS is ensuring all Veterans can receive the access and care they deserve. Expanding access to qualified healthcare providers for all Veterans is vital, but so is ensuring all community-based health and mental health providers have the information needed to care for, and appropriately treat or refer Veteran patients. Please reach out to us at [login to see] to tell us more about your experience and we will do our best to connect you to someone within the VA that can help.
Ok, I am not as tech savvy that I would like to be. Where is the original question? I am 100% Mentally Disabled with Chronic PTSD and Major Depression. I fight myself to get up and get busy, yes I am on psychotropics too. I see a VA Psychiatrist and I see (televideo) a VA Psychologist. I also see a civilian psychiatrist (phone call) for Wellbutron as I have been diagnosed with Adult ADD. I am on Modafinil for daytime sleepiness from a Sleep Doctor as I have Obstructive Sleep Apnea. I am on cymbalta for depression, but it doesn't work. I was on Prazosin to help stop my thrashing at night, but I need to be on Terazosin instead because of prostate issues. So I prefer thrashing instead of getting up every hour to relieve my bladder. Am I suicidal. I am a student of One Day at a time. Today I am ok, tired perhaps, but ok.
First off, Dr. Van Dahlen, thank you for allowing us to connect with you on this forum. It speaks volumes and is one of the first efforts I have seen to actually bridge the ever-widening gap between veterans and their government caregivers.
I Co-Founded Grey Team (http://www.greyteam.org) from growing tired of watching amazing people who served this great nation, take their lives due to the frustration of trying to obtain the medical care we were all promised. One of the reasons the American military fights so hard is because we are given a promise that the government has our back and no soldier will be left behind. Unfortunately in practice, this is often not the case, too many warriors fall through the cracks left open by shoddy administrators and lack of care at the VA.
I, personally, have dealt with VA bureaucrats who value their time towards retirement much more than the lives they have sworn to save and heal. Sometimes I feel like I am beating my head against a wall bloody as I attempt to freely share the invaluable data we have collected at Grey team, and the real-life advances our efforts have generated.
Grey Team has a 100% success rate of completely rebooting a veteran's life by using a combination of basic fundamentals, futuristic healing technologies, and the reinstatement of purpose and passion.
What we do, WORKS. And it is sustainable, less expensive, less damaging than the constant administration of pain killers, and completely life-changing to a veteran. But it isn't without overhead. And although I, and most of my staff, are unpaid volunteers, there are considerable ongoing expenses to maintain the facility. Up until now, these costs have all been covered by corporate and private donors, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, Grey Team has had to cancel all of our future fundraising events.
I understand that PREVENTS has funding designated for external to the VA nonprofit partnerships but have so far been unsuccessful in locating any applications for same. Can you please message me with any updates on this?
Again, thanks for making yourself available to us. We all are on the same team, and by working closely together, we can definitely solve this crisis.
I Co-Founded Grey Team (http://www.greyteam.org) from growing tired of watching amazing people who served this great nation, take their lives due to the frustration of trying to obtain the medical care we were all promised. One of the reasons the American military fights so hard is because we are given a promise that the government has our back and no soldier will be left behind. Unfortunately in practice, this is often not the case, too many warriors fall through the cracks left open by shoddy administrators and lack of care at the VA.
I, personally, have dealt with VA bureaucrats who value their time towards retirement much more than the lives they have sworn to save and heal. Sometimes I feel like I am beating my head against a wall bloody as I attempt to freely share the invaluable data we have collected at Grey team, and the real-life advances our efforts have generated.
Grey Team has a 100% success rate of completely rebooting a veteran's life by using a combination of basic fundamentals, futuristic healing technologies, and the reinstatement of purpose and passion.
What we do, WORKS. And it is sustainable, less expensive, less damaging than the constant administration of pain killers, and completely life-changing to a veteran. But it isn't without overhead. And although I, and most of my staff, are unpaid volunteers, there are considerable ongoing expenses to maintain the facility. Up until now, these costs have all been covered by corporate and private donors, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, Grey Team has had to cancel all of our future fundraising events.
I understand that PREVENTS has funding designated for external to the VA nonprofit partnerships but have so far been unsuccessful in locating any applications for same. Can you please message me with any updates on this?
Again, thanks for making yourself available to us. We all are on the same team, and by working closely together, we can definitely solve this crisis.
Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD
Hi Connie! You’ll be able to join the program and view responses now. Additionally, if you’re looking to get involved further in the work of PREVENTS, an important first step is taking the PREVENTS Pledge to REACH, which can be found here: https://www.wearewithinreach.net/pledge/. Thank you for your interest in our work!
Conni Eckstein
I'm more active than that and left a comment days ago. Please look for and respond to that one.
A1C Nicole Lacy
Mary Carlson - I think that the "live Q and A" is Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD just answering people's questions directly on their comment feed. I am assuming there is no video, because I looked and couldn't find anything lol
Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD
The event is currently taking place--it is not a video Q&A, but we are responding to questions that are asked in this chat. If you have a question for us, please post it and we will respond! Thank you for your interest!
Americans in my case knew, cared (or understood) to know what it was like to survive by the grace of God hundreds maybe thousands of incoming Russian 122 mm rockets. These Rockets sounded like thousands trains coming right into your face, and in my fighting hole. No bunkers for us! Americans in general since WW 2 know war only from movies, and from the well paid todays corporate media hacks. My opinion is Hollywood does a horrible job as for war movies. First place in war there are no heroes. In my uppers in my 60’s generation my peers were draft dodgers and corporate hacks on their second new home, in their first marriege. I felt the odd man out living among the United States spoiled unwashed unaware. "At least this is how I thought at the time". I was isolated surrounded by my own experience of war. Like I said I had more in-common with a woman who had been raped than my own countryman. I also had more in-common with my parents generation in Europe, even in Russia. Years later I found out I was defending an imaginary wall on South Vietnams DMZ that the then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara dreamt up. The electronic wall was called the McNamara Wall. Also later while Marines and Army artillery units were fighting and dying defending his stupid Wall he McNamara was having cocktails in his house with a leader of the peace movement. I can only guess suicide is a result of ones being isolated. Knowing you’re and your fellow combat veterans efforts were in vain. Depressing thoughts to live with. Now I survive because I reach out to people. I reach out to people who need a friend. Of course I do not live in the US anymore where I have to see first hand the result. of bad politics.
Do you know how you prevent soldiers from preventing them from going committing suicide is getting fucking VA to fucking help them medically even outsourcing them medically instead of just letting you sit here fucking die and suffer and become more traumatized from your injuries that’s how you save them by helping them because they don’t help them in Washington state that’s for damn sure not the perfect example of that
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