In July, Mission Daybreak attended the 2024 VA/DOD Suicide Prevention Conference, the nation’s only conference dedicated to addressing military and Veteran suicide prevention. Guided by VA’s National Strategy for Preventing Veteran Suicide and the Department of Defense Strategy for Suicide Prevention, this year’s theme—Reimagining Suicide Prevention: Evolving and Innovating to Meet Diverse Needs—focused on innovative ways to reach at-risk service member and Veteran populations. In particular, the conference discussed supporting historically underserved populations such as women, LGBTQ+, or American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans and service members.
At the Mission Daybreak panel, VetStore’s Dr. Joseph Simonetti and the Overwatch Project’s Casey Woods joined VHA’s Dr. Todd Burnett, Dr. Amanda Lienau, and Theresa Patton to discuss innovation in Veteran suicide prevention and the importance of lethal means safety. In the exhibition hall, Mission Daybreak teams NeuroFlow, ReflexAI, Sound Off, Stop Soldier Suicide, and Televeda presented their solutions to suicide prevention experts across VA and DOD.
Meaningfully addressing suicide prevention for service members and Veterans will take a community—as we heard throughout the conference. “We have three core tenets that drive VA suicide prevention mission priorities. The first is suicide is preventable. The last one is it takes everybody involved,” Dr. Burnett discussed in his opening remarks. “And the second one is that it takes a public health approach—it’s an all of government, all of community, all-hands-on-deck approach if we’re going to do this. Clinicians cannot do this alone.”
Driving innovative collaborations in suicide prevention
When VA launched the multiphase, $20 million grand challenge in May 2022 to identify and accelerate suicide prevention solutions that can meet the diverse needs of Veterans, more than 1,300 Veterans, Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), community-based organizations, health tech companies, startups, and universities submitted concepts.
“Mission Daybreak started with the Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning and Suicide Prevention Office,” said Theresa Patton. “It was birthed from these two offices, and today, we are working with the Veterans Crisis Line, Office of Research and Development, Strategic Initiative Lab, Diffusion of Excellence, Innovations Network, Office of Information—all of us are collaborating to help prevent Veteran suicide.”
“In order for us to be really successful, we need even more help. We need even more collaboration. These aren’t plug-and-play kinds of efforts. These are efforts that require continued design and iteration,” said Dr. Amanda Lienau. “One of the things we were hoping to do with this grand challenge is build a community of collaboration that will continue over time. So, while technology is a big component of things we’re testing with Mission Daybreak, it’s really about the human relationships and improved communication and understanding.”
Addressing safe firearm storage—together
During the panel discussion on lethal means safety, Casey Woods and Dr. Joe Simonetti spoke with Dr. Amanda Lienau about how they’re meeting Veterans where they are—and in particular, focusing on how and when Veterans feel comfortable speaking about their guns.
“I have a lot of clinicians in our orbit who do amazing work, but many gun owners, and many Veterans and service members specifically, don’t necessarily feel comfortable talking about their firearms with their clinicians,” noted Casey Woods. The Overwatch Project is a peer-based intervention program modeled after the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign. Veterans are empowered to intervene with their at-risk buddies, offering to temporarily hold onto their guns or take protective storage measures before it is too late. The Overwatch Project is on track to train 25,000 service members and veterans on firearms lethal means safety this year, and engage thousands more through other outreach initiatives.
“As Casey mentioned—and she’s spot on—some folks are not ready to have conversations with their clinicians about firearms. We’re trying to improve that, but that’s just where we are in terms of the clinical challenge our providers face,” agreed Dr. Joe Simonetti. VetStore connects Veterans to free firearm storage solutions through community-based firearm retailers and shooting ranges. The solution prioritizes the privacy, preferences, and autonomy of Veterans and mitigates cost, stigma, and practical barriers to secure firearm storage solutions.
Normalizing discussions on lethal means safety
One of the most important steps in advancing lethal means safety is helping communities talk about it. “There were nonprofits that we wanted to work with years back, and every conversation about firearms was viewed as political. There’s been a lot of really groundbreaking progress and work that’s been done even in just the past few years,” said Casey Woods. “I’ll never forget the moment when I [discovered] Mission Daybreak, and lethal means safety was the number one priority listed.”
And it’s not just about promoting conversations—it’s about reframing the discussion entirely. VetStore’s storage follows federal firearm transfer regulations regulations and is open to all Veterans, regardless of why they’re looking for storage. “If somebody shows up to store their firearms, it’s no questions asked,” Dr. Joe Simonetti stated. “It’s not framed as suicide prevention.” VetStore has found that the open-door policy has encouraged more Veterans to engage with their services.
Building a community of collaboration
VA launched the multiphase, $20 million Mission Daybreak grand challenge in 2022, supporting potential solutions across a broad spectrum of focus areas. Open innovation challenges like Mission Daybreak can accelerate the development of solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. By providing no-strings-attached financial and non-financial incentives, facilitating partnerships and mentorship, and even helping to secure commercial commitments, open innovation can shepherd and speed novel ideas to become viable prototypes.
Dr. Joe Simonetti credits Mission Daybreak for expanding opportunities for non-VA innovators to get involved and funded. “Just to say it bluntly, there are brilliant people everywhere, and I love the researchers and operations and clinicians and administrators in VA. They do amazing work. But we have very smart people elsewhere, too, who don’t work for the VA, who come from other sectors and don’t think of themselves as researchers or doing healthcare,” said Dr. Joe Simonetti. “And so, some of the brilliance of Mission Daybreak—that we don’t comment on enough—was helping us figure out some of those regulations so that we can fund people in a way that the government doesn’t typically fund people. And that, I think, was huge in terms of getting people involved.”
Building off the work that began with the grand challenge, Mission Daybreak continues to bring Veterans, researchers, technologists, advocates, healthcare providers, health innovators, and service members together to collaborate and advance suicide prevention solutions. “There’s a real magic to getting smart, passionate people in the same spaces virtually or in-person and talking through solutions, because you may come up with an idea that you never thought you would have otherwise,” Casey Woods noted. “It really kind of made us pause and think big. Then that was informed by all these other people who were involved in that same process with us in this collective experience that we had with Mission Daybreak.”
New funding opportunity: VA publishes Broad Agency Announcement
VHA Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) has published an ambitious Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) on suicide prevention. This initiative will source and fund early-stage research, development, prototyping, and piloting.
VHA IE invites all potential offerors (including private-sector companies, nonprofits, and institutions of higher learning) to contribute ideas for innovations in suicide prevention, care coordination, and treatment that:
- Significantly increase Veteran access to services.
- Reduce or control costs of delivering those services.
- Enhance the performance of VA operations.
- Improve the quality of service that Veterans and their families receive.
Please refer to the BAA for all official submission requirements and instructions.
Learn more about the VHA IE Broad Agency Announcement.
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