 But what we have here today is we have Ms. Janis Gates and Mr. Conrad Washington, and Conrad is our VA assistant director for the FACE Initiative up in Washington, D.C. And Charles back here from Virginia had an opportunity to represent me and meet Mr. Conrad. And so we struck up a good friendship and I said, you know, Chaplin's allergic to work, so I decided to come and work on someone else and he was more than grateful to come down here and conduct a very important and Janet also works for the VA and she's she's the suicide prevention coordinator for this area. So for those of you there in this area we're going to give you a whole bunch of information to begin with. So what I'd like to do is just read the bio on Conrad, introduce him, and get this party started, okay? Conrad Washington serves as the deputy director with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Center for FACE and Opportunity Initiative within the Office of Public Intergovernmental Affairs. In this capacity he provides collaborative strategic leadership to develop and cultivate partnerships with FACE, FACE, non-profit, and community organizations. These partnerships assist to increase awareness of VA programs and service veterans or family survivor caregivers and other beneficiaries. Mr. Washington is in the process of studying, learning, being, doing, everything that we in this group should be doing as well. We never stop learning. The day that you stop learning is the day you're dead and I don't see any dead people in here right now, so bottom line is continue to study, make yourself better and understand. So at this time I would like to introduce our special guest, Deputy Director, Mr. Conrad Washington. Okay, good afternoon. They gave me a microphone, but I think it was okay, right? And then I think I have to stay in this little spot while I was reading a lot of the book too, so I'm hanging in there, right? So thank you for the introduction, I appreciate it. So I'm from Washington, D.C., right? And I represent the VA Center for FACE and Opportunity Initiative, right? What does all that mean? It's a lot of words, isn't it? A lot of titles, right? Yeah, yeah. When a title is coming up, right? Right? So I'm going to go ahead and be a starting and share with you what the Center for Faith is all about. I'm not going to prolong the time. Here are some of the topics we're going to cover and I'll pause. If you have questions, please stop and I'll answer. So what I'm mentioning is basically I'm not going to read it for you, but we reach out to all types of organizations in a faith-based, non-profit community. And the purpose of reaching out to those organizations, just like the chaplain's here, is to create a relationship, partnership so we can touch the lives of veterans and their families. And I'm going to tell you how we do that for events, to break out sessions, and then we invite local suicide police, according to our trained clinicians, to come and share with us about some of the suicide things that we're going to talk about. All right, so the office began in 2004 around the President Bush administration, right? People always ask, well, Conway, how many of you guys have been around? I've never heard of you, right? Well, there's a season for everything, right? And so this is the season that we're getting publicity, disability, whatever you want to call it. And in the season, I want to make sure that the injustice amplifies what our mission is, right? So we begin in 2004. Last year, May of 2019, when the President signed another order, instituting or re-implementing us as the Center for Faith for Opportunity Initiative. So we've been around for a little while. Still good? We'll get to this stuff here. So we're not the only show in town. What does that mean? In Washington, D.C., there are 13 federal agencies, or centers, within the government, right? So we're not the only show. We're one of them. So on the USDA, you see the list. They're not going to read them. And we all collaborate, partner, we do different things, and meet very often on various subjects. And I'll share a story with you. I was in Los Angeles last year, partnering with the Salvation Army. And they'll shelter there. His name is Richard, Mr. Little. He runs that program that they'll shelter in Los Angeles. And as we were having our presentation, and we got done, he took me through a tour of the facility, and they housed about 500 and so veterans. He says, we're walking through, well, I didn't have a real total of them, right? So we're walking through, he took me through a garden ahead. And I was like, okay, he's a kind of, I got a question for you. He said, you know, we're looking for some funding for a garden. Can you help us out? Now, obviously, I'm from Chicago, so I really don't know a lot about farming, right? And my office doesn't have any rents. But what I did do, because of the relationship and partnership I have with some of these faith-based records and other federal agencies, I partnered with USDA, Mike Beatty, and we started committing the documents and saying, hey, let's see what they have, see if we can get some funding to fund their garden. And so we started with some veterans there, created the garden, and then they wanted to have the vegetables sold to a local economy, right? And so that's a process. So most of the time, the things we do, we connect people with people who can help them, right? So here are some of our recent gardeners that I had in the last probably three or four months. I've been working hard trying to connect everyone, because I have this philosophy that they'd be a little crazy. We can go out to the city, we can go out to the city and have an event with an organization and leave the city better than we got. And so my partnership with Google, for example, when I was in Nashville, they came out, they didn't offer positions. And what they did offer was they had a veteran program. They talked about that veteran program, gave literature for handouts, so we can educate the veterans and their families about some of the opportunities they have in the area, right? And I go along, I'm standing for the slide there, I go along about some of the others. K-Love, that's a radio station, right? We did a PSA with them. The Warriors journey they've heard about them, they have program and organization, Workforce Solutions, Greater Dallas area. Last November, we had the first November kind of an escapade around the country celebrating veterans and their families for the entire month of November. So I was going the entire month, I had about nine events. I was very tired when I came home, right? But part of that event, part of the stop was in November we went to Dallas. And I partnered with the city of Dallas, Workforce Solutions, and way away from you in Dallas to offer 14,000 positions, 2100 contingent offers, and 20 on the spot hires. So that's the kind of thing that we want to do when we reach out to the department of organizations, not just the other lip service, but having something that's tangible, right? Okay, and I talked about the K-Love radio station, the Warriors journey, those are some of the people that were there. That's Mr. Loomis, Salvation Army there, Tennessee, I really do go out to these places. It's a problem to see them now, but it's a good time. So according to the executive order, the president signed, right? What that does is, I'm going to say, don't get me in the way here, what that does is, these are the areas that we focus on. So the beat, the Department of Veterinary Affairs have a lot of programs, and it's probably too many for me to talk about. So to kind of go into detail here, but I'll share with you, we have a veteran justice outreach program. I'll show you hands how many of you can leave with that. It's a great program. We have cities throughout the nation that give an alternative way for veterans to go through the court system. We have to take them back to the system, the system of society, rather than just hammer down, but it's a successful program, and generally talk a little bit more about it. So we can focus on all these different areas, religious liberty, substance abuse, different things, crime conventions, these are all the things that we're focusing on in this executive order. So here's a statistic you can kind of see, what would be religious affiliation, we talk about veterans. So the largest population of veterans in the nation, Protestant and Catholic, kind of give you a snapshot of what we look like from religious. And these are self reported, right? I used 2016, I think 2017 just came out, but it's pretty similar. So kind of get a feel of that. And so with the religious data, the number of veterans that we have throughout the nation, per capita, you can see is Alaska named, right? But then if you pop up a little bit, you can see California, Texas, and Florida, those are the top three states that have the most veterans. So we do focus on those states, and we try to partner with different organizations so we can go out and take the city and bring the 22 million veterans under the VAE umbrella, because they're all not under umbrella yet, right? And that's the whole purpose of this. Questions and comments? Are you good? You guys still awake? So what are our objectives? I'm not going to read the bullets, but I'll share with you. We want to make sure that when partner organizations, that it's tangible, that they're nonprofit, that they have a veteran program with more than one veteran. Yeah, so I want to talk about another one, but I'll share with you. I was out at the White House delegation in December of last year with Puerto Rico. I'm not going to talk about the current events in Puerto Rico, but this kind of stemmed from that a little bit. I was sitting at the table with Silvation of Army, a lovely organization with that particular part of the Silvation Army in Puerto Rico. We sat down with other faith-based directors, and I said, hey, how many veterans do you have that you support in your programs? And they said, well, we'll get back with you, Conrad. I'm a retired Marine, right? They'll pray for me. So I failed to share with you. The part of the journey I had was serving in the Marine Corps for 20 years, and I went to Iraq in 2004 with their battalion for Marines on 29th Palms. I was a Marine Corps Joe instructor from 92,001. So kind of a crazy career. I mean, God called me to ministry and doing some things here. Thank you. Thank you. How are you guys doing? So I say that because when I go out and talk to people, I want them to know that when we talk about veterans and the things that go through, I can relate sensitive to the things that veterans experience and my experience on the same things. So that's why I mentioned that it's not who I had one deployment. As you know, many service members, Army, Navy, Air Force Marines, Coast Guard have many, many more deployments that I had. But I do understand the process of getting worked up and going out and doing what we're trained to do, right? So that being said, when we go out to these organizations, I want them to make sure that they have what they have. And so that organization in Puerto Rico, they emailed me back and said, we had two veterans. So for me to come out with all the resources that the department has, I just can't justify that. And so as chaplains, when you go out and you see a need for calling to help veterans, please make sure that we have a substantial amount of money so we can go out and take the sentence. Does that make sense? Right, right. So what does that look like? When we have events that we partner with different organizations, they make those usually from 9.30 in the morning or 8.30. We have a 30 minute plenary that means we'll have people come. We have a keynote speaker out in the secretary or senior secretary from headquarters. And then we'll go into our breakout sessions. And they range from suicide prevention, like Jen is going to do here today, which is about an hour long. And then we have benefits. We have homelessness. We have every type of breakout session you can imagine. So they're educated and then they're engaged. And then we can make sure that they understand what they rank, right? And that's the whole purpose of it. So what are some of the accomplishments we have? People always want to know what do you really do, right? So yes, this position is job. Our office is relational, as you may already know. Take a look at the slides and below some of the read. This is what we do. We go out and we want to basically involve over 350,000 non-profit organizations in the United States. That's a lot. And I can tell you, I don't have all of them under the umbrella of the VA, right? And all of them need to have veteran programs. But the intent is to go out and reach as many veterans as we can through these organizations, right? So when you go back to the chapters of your various geographical locations, not just DAV, but if you know of non-profit organizations that have veteran programs and are doing good things, please let me know. And you say, well, kind of, how do we let you know? Well, I have cars. I don't have a whole lot to have if you take pictures of the car. Is that okay? Yeah, because we're cutting back, right? I live here. And then you can take a picture of the car. You reach out to me and I have my coordinator touch base with you. Plan something and get something going. Okay. So with that being said, I'm going to wind up in a little bit, but I want to share with you a couple of thoughts. So how many heard of the Mission Act? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the Mission Act came out June, is it 4th or 6th? June 6th. June 6th. And so I know there's a lot of controversy around the Mission Act and what it does and how helpful it is. But I want you to know, I'm going to read a few things for you so you can be aware. But also before I read what the Mission Act can do, by shorthand, how many of you connect to your local VA medical center? Thank you for sharing. That's important because that VA medical center has a lot of resources that can help you in doing what you do. And what we're doing is touching the lives of veterans and their families. So I told Mike earlier, we had a great conversation. I'm in D.C. I'm wearing a suit to tie. And I'm going to all these meetings and I'm listening and I'm using discernment. And I'm saying to myself, if it doesn't help the veteran and their family, Congress is not going to support it plain and simple. And I can tell you that Secretary Wookie is a man of faith. He supports the sympathy and that's good to know. But as I go to navigate, if it doesn't support the veteran, no matter what branch they're from, I'm just not going to support it. I'm going to step back. And the other piece I'll share with you, as I go out and I partner with different organizations from nonprofit and faith-based, that means pastors and clergy from all over the nation, I will share with you that it's from an ecumenical standpoint. That means as Mike mentioned to you all about your responsibilities as chaplainants, it's sort of the same with me. I'm not concerned with doctrinal differences, right? Or theological differences, right? Yes, I'm in seminary. I grew up in the church. I'm a P.K. I got it, right? I got it, but that's not why I'm here. If we want to have a conversation about faith and where Jesus is not allowed, that's a separate conversation. Right now, when I share with some of those organizations and pastors and clergy, because they're Muslim and different Catholic as well, I share with him that within your faith, there should be love. And if you say that you're strong in your faith, then I would like to see you extend that love as we go out and reach the veterans in your congregation. That's what I use, right? And so an example of that is I was in Oklahoma last year, and we went there, and the Native American culture has a different type of remedy for sicknesses. And so he would share with me how they deal with some of the sicknesses in their congregation. Now, I don't agree with it, absolutely. And the hair on my neck is standing up, you know. But what I told him was, is just what I told you guys. I said, the VA is about faith. This office is about faith. So we want to share the love of the VA by finding out how many veterans in your congregation in the Native American that have used our services and are better off because of it. He told me he had like 1,300 or so, because there were like a bunch of different, I forget what you call them. So I want to capitalize on that and say, guess what? There's a purpose for the VA. They can make your life better, you know. And think about it. This is how it translates to money. If I went to a city, just like right now, as I was walking this morning, the latest afternoon rather coming down the hall and I saw the breakout sessions for the benefits. Let's say 50 veterans in Orlando got awarded X amount of dollars. You guys tracking with me? What does that do? That makes the VA look good because that means we have more veterans under our umbrella in Orlando. But guess what else it does? Those veterans' life have been improved by monetary amount of money, right? So they're improved. And oh, by the way, they're probably going to spend that money in Disneyland, Disney World, some in the economy, right? So the economy is going to improve. So it does us justice when we go out and try to capture the veterans and help them get what they rate, what they deserve, what they earn, right? So I'm going to read a few things about the mission act that's important. The mission act says here that veterans have more choices for care and better customer service when they choose to receive community care, right? Veterans have expanded access to community care, right? Scheduling appointments is easier. Payments to community providers are made in a timely manner because that was some issues. I know, yes, I hit your questions into it. Veterans have access to new convenient options to receive care for minor injury and illnesses. Now, before I take your questions, I'll share with you, it's not a disclaimer, I'm not wiggling out, but I share with you that I'm not a clinician, right? And I have a little knowledge of the mission act, but I will share with you that I can connect you with the local VA medical center and the point of contact that can cut and brief you on what the mission act is all about in your area, right? That's what I can do. No. So before I reach out as a bio, are there any questions? Yes, sir, ma'am. I don't really want to dig her with you, but unless I'm mistaken, the Department of Veterans Affairs in relation to the mission act has a gag order on it with Region 4. Hmm, so I'm not familiar with that. And I wasn't brief on it when it came out, but I'll take that as a note. With Region 4. I'm not familiar with any kind of gag order for Region 4. Oh, would you repeat that? Yeah, so the question was, he heard there's a gag order in the VA for Region 4 regarding the mission act. So I'm not familiar with that at all, but I can find out. I can let Mike know. Is that okay? Yeah, fine. Anything else? Other questions? I'll say something positive. The mission act works. Oh, really? Tell us why it works. Because I've had two referrals. I got to do physical therapy at Robert Wood Johnson in Summerville, because they couldn't get me in. And then as a female, I got to go get my annual exterior of the VA because they couldn't get me into 30 days. Wow. And so for me, it works in New Jersey. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Thank you. A couple of other things before I take my seat and I'll read up by them. I keep saying that. When I go out and talk to some of the pastors throughout the nation, I can tell you that we always have what's called the suicide prevention training that you're going to get today. I get clergy at the moment, because I think it's important for all clergy, all denominations to understand the path that veterans go to and the thought process when they think about contemplating taking their life. I mean, so this is not just exclusive to chapters. It's for veterans. It's for clergy leaders throughout the nation. And I go all over. I didn't mention what our office is, you probably can imagine, because we instituted about it in the White House. We haven't got a line to the White House. The White House Office of Public Liaison. And so I just had a meeting with them. They're working hand in hand. There's an executive order that came about March 5th. They were signed by the President this year, sitting in Task Force. Task Force will be implemented. And they have a year for that Task Force to come back to the President and say, this is what we're going to do. And so he's aligned a professional doctor. Her name is Dr. Barbara named Van Dallen. D-A-H-L-E, I don't know if I pronounced her right, Van Dallen. Her and I met two or three times in the last few days. She's working with the White House and me. She's a psychologist. She's leading this Task Force. And the Task Force is all inclusive. What does that mean? It's not just a VA Task Force. They're encompassing various federal agencies to join the HUD, USDA, so that we can go out and come up with a plan on how we can eliminate or decrease 22 veterans per day taking their life. That's what the Task Force is about. It's not just lip service. It's like, hey, what are we going to do? And she is an alumna of faith, as a clinician. And she's partnered with the Center of Faith here in the VA. She believes in faith. And so we're going to work together to make sure that the pastors encourage us and we can throughout the nation. And I can tell you, you probably, you may get what I hope you do, what's going to happen is I'm in the process right now, planning a big symposium or summit. It's going to be a suicide provision summit in Maryland, right? The city of Maryland with a retemple. You know a retemple? Yes. Is that the DOD-PLA contract? No. I'll be there as well presenting in Nashville. We're going to retemple. We're going to bring some pastors all over the nation to come to retemple. We're going to take the city and educate the approaching leaders about suicide prevention, right? So just be aware of that. So that being said, let me read one more quick question. Yes, sir. Are you planning to have the round table again at mid-winter 2020? That was an excellent day that we spent in Washington, D.C. in 2020. That's how I learned all of this stuff there that I did not know. Yeah, so thank you for saying it because I almost forget about the round table. So every year we have a round table, right? And the round table, all it is is just clergy coming from all over the nation from all the incremental standpoints that we breathe in on the benefits and resources that the VA had. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. I am going to have it, but I'm going to do it slightly different. I'm going to incorporate the round table, but I'm also going to have a summit in conjunction with that. So I haven't determined if I'm going to have the VA. I think it's going to be larger. The White House is going to be part of that. And then what I want to do is I want to make sure that we hit as many of the large congregations as we can. I grew up in a small, my stepdad was a pastor of a small Baptist church in West Side of Chicago, right? So I don't exclude small churches, but I think the most bang for your buck is when you reach those large organizations because you have a larger amount of benefits, right? That's what we're going to do. So yes, we will have you next year. It will be February, but it's going to be different than it did this year. If I could make one suggestion that it was on the same day that we had our visits on Capitol Hill. So that cut into something about time. All right. First of all, the round table discussion, Conrad reached out to me through Charles' contact, because Charles was running around to me. It had nothing to do with the DAV. As a matter of fact, when Conrad so graciously gave us an opportunity and a date and time, I sent that information up at National to let them know that we had something else that is another opportunity for the chaplains to come and do it. So it wasn't part of the DAV program. And so this was the first year that we did it because Deputy Director Conrad Washington was gracious enough to accommodate us. And it just so happened to be during the midwinter. Now, if it's a date outside the midwinter, and you're not coming midwinter, then you're on your own dime, of course. But if you're coming to midwinter to talk to your congressman, that is priority to DAV's mission. And if you've got enough folks from your department or chapter to go talk to the congressman and you need to slip away and Conrad then, in turn, gives us another opportunity, it worked out really well this year. And I'm not going to guarantee it's going to work out the years in the future. It just depends on, it's a separate entity and it just so happens that it accommodated us. And I'm very thankful that you got a lot of good information from that. And for those of you in charge, you went too, right? But we miss you, old chaplain. We know you had an emergency. Well, I appreciate that sort of thing. My wife's doing well. She's out there swimming, and I'm in here with one of the hotline swangers. I don't know who got the better deal there. So we'll take a look at the dates. When I coordinate with the chaplain here, we'll make sure that we hopefully have the time to give them our max participation. Any other questions for me about the VA Center for Faith and how we exist and what we do? Okay, so right now, by show of hands, you understand as well what we do. You do? You do, right? Basically, just remember this, we partner with non-profit faith-based organizations around the country. Right? And it doesn't matter what the nomination they are. Part of my study last year in seminary was to go out and talk to a mosque, right? Go to a mosque, visit a mosque, and talk to the online community. So I've never been to a mosque in my life. You know, at a certain rate, over 20 years, I had Muslim friends, but that's as far as it went. We had conversations and something out, but I never really dove into where they worship and prayed. So it was a new experience. I was a little apprehensive. So I prayed, and I thought, oh boy, there we go. But it ended up being very well because the gentlemen who I talked to, at the end of our two hours of the round when we were talking, we absolutely didn't agree, which was obvious based on our different theological loctoes. But I invited him to the round table when he came. I gave him a hug because I believe I'm a hugger, right? And it probably doesn't work well with them. But I'm the hugger in there. Yeah, I'm the hugger. And he came and, you know, we showed some love for him. He's going to come back again and hug him. So that's what we were about to do. So I'm not going to probably want to get Janet up here. It's going to be her bio. There's no other questions. Do you mind if I get something? No. Okay, so I'm going to try to read this without messing it up. Janet Gates is the coordinator for the suicide prevention team for Orlando v. Mendocin originally from South Carolina. Ms. Gates earned a master degree in social work from the University of South Carolina. She maintained a practice in adolescent and adult psychotherapy prior to joining WJB during BAMC in Columbia, South Carolina. That's a mental center. As an outpatient mental health therapist in 2011, Ms. Gates then accepted the community therapy trainer, is trained in cognitive processing therapy, criminal exposure, eye movement, and desensitization reprocessing, and motivational interviewing. She's also a national trainer for first responders understanding our veterans' mental health and suicide prevention, training VA clinicians, VA police officers, and community first responders in the needs of veterans in crisis, understanding post-deployment issues and suicide prevention. I need to do the record years ago. Ms. Gates is currently serving as a suicide prevention coordinator at the Orlando VA Medical Center overseeing a team of 10 staff who provide services on average of 190 veterans per month while sponsoring possibly 180 calls to the veteran crisis line monthly and provides monthly outreach events to each of the six counties in the Orlando Medical Center catchment area. Ms. Gates is dedicated to raising the level of awareness of the risk of suicide and the available resources to those who need it. Thank you so much. That makes me sound way more important than I am. My name is Janet Gates, as Conrad just said, and he's going to thank you for pulling that up for me. I appreciate it. I have the opportunity to talk to you today about a SAVE program. You know, the federal government would have acronyms for everything. So the SAVE program is all about suicide prevention. And I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with each of you today because all of you are working with our veterans and they're all struggling with various things because they're human beings. So the things that I'm talking to you today, even though the presentation is focused on veterans, suicide prevention is a public health issue. Everybody could be struggling with this. So your friends, your family members, your children, your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your neighbor next door, your coworkers, anybody could be struggling with suicidal thoughts. So please keep that in mind today, as I'm talking to you, even though I'm focused on veterans, this is applicable for everybody. Okay? Thank you so much. So a little bit of housekeeping. I know that the topic of suicide can be a sensitive issue, sensitive topic for some. If you need to get up and leave, we're all adults. Folks need to go down the hall, get water in these bathrooms, take funcals, do whatever you need to do. Absolutely. If you'll give me a little thumbs up, that lets me know that everything is okay. If you're not okay, and this is just a little too much, and you need to get up and leave, that's okay too. But if you give me a thumbs down as you're leaving, then I'll know to follow up with you afterwards, okay? And I can meet with you somewhere else later. What we're going to do today is I'm going to go over the objectives for talking about suicide prevention. I'm going to give you a few facts related to suicide. I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of statistics. I'm going to give you a few numbers, but not a whole lot. And we're going to talk about some of the myths and some of the realities of suicide prevention. And then we'll go through the steps of SAVE, tell you what those are, and then I'm going to give you some resources at the end. Okay? Any questions so far? Yes. No ace cards? No ace cards. I have some veteran crisis line cards before you're done though. I will give you those. Okay. So talking about suicide, when it comes to suicide, these are going to be these first few statistics for the United States. This is not specific for veterans on this line, okay? So we've got more than 45,000 lives lost to suicide every year. That's a lot. Think about that number for a minute. 45,000 are dying by suicide every year. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death. We don't hear about it much in the news, unless it's been a celebrity or some other famous person going on because there's this stigma related to it. And part of what I do is walking around, talking to folks just like you today, I want to help reduce that stigma so that we can talk about it, okay? And then finally for this slide, someone's dying by suicide every 12 minutes. Now I'm a social worker, math is not my thing. But think about how long we're going to be sitting in this room. How many 12 minutes have gone by? How many lives were lost just in the time that we've been sitting here today? It's an important topic. It's one that I'm really passionate about and I want to make sure that I get the information to you so that you can share it and you can use the information when you're interacting with other people. So thinking about suicide, even though I said 45,000 are dying by suicide, over a million people are attempting suicide. Again, every 35 seconds, somebody is making an attempt by various means, and we'll talk about the means in a minute. Women attempt suicide three times more likely than men, but men are four times more likely to die by suicide. What do you think that is? Firearms. Legal means, yeah. Men typically use firearms. Women typically overdose. That is not a very fast rule. There are exceptions to all of it. But for the most part, when firearms are used, that's the most legal means of suicide. So think about the population with which we interact. If you think about the veterans, when you're thinking about military, break it down to gender. Do we have typically more men or more women? What are they going to typically be using firearms? Now, women are trained in the military too, so what are they going to be comfortable with? So let's not take it for granted. It's a female, so she's going over there. It's not necessary. I'm not trying to upset anybody. It's not a shock value. This is reality, and I want you to understand why this is so important that we talk about it today. Okay? Thank you. Now these statistics are going to be specific to the veterans. 18% of all deaths by suicide in the U.S. were by veterans. The latest numbers are 20 veterans a day are dying by suicide. 14 of those are not connected with VA care. Again, math is not my thing, but if you think about 20 veterans a day dying by suicide, today is August the 4th. That means 4,300 veterans have died this year by suicide, as of today. 4,300. Any number greater than zero is too many. We have to do something. Now, when you think about that 20 a day, 14 are not connected with VA care. We need to reach those 14 and we need to bring them into the VA and we need to get them engaged in treatment because treatment works. So as you're interacting with the veterans, it's great to get them connected with the benefit side of the house. They have earned those. Absolutely. They are entitled to those and they need those benefits. They're also entitled to treatment and treatment works. So if you're talking with a veteran and they're not seeking care at the VA, talk to them about that. Please encourage them to come and get care. The only way we can help them is if they come to us. So I really appreciate the opportunity such as this to get out and talk to folks who can help bring the veterans into care. As Conrad was so kind to read my bio, one of the things that I'm really passionate about right now and helping to get that 20 down and reaching those 14 is I'm working with our national training team to reach out to first responders in the community. Our VA police, they are awesome individuals. Absolutely. But if our VA police are interacting with the veteran, they're already at the VA. Okay. So we're working with the community law enforcement, the community first responders, firefighters, EMTs so that when the veteran is struggling with something, the first responders are there. Whether the veteran was involved in a domestic dispute or had a car accident or an overdose. Folks who are responding to them can talk to them about bringing them to the VA and getting them connected with care so that we can reduce this number. Veterans are more likely to dive using a firearm. We talked about that, but it's in the military. They're used to using a firearm. On average, 764 suicide attempts per month by veterans. And 25% of veterans who died by suicide had a previous suicide attempt. So if somebody that you're talking with is telling you or has shared with you that they have attempted in the past, that's going to put them at greater risk automatically. So I'm going to address a few of the myths and some of the realities so that we can help reduce this statement. So I'm going to ask you to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. If somebody really wants to die by suicide, they will find a way to do it. If you think that statement is true, I want you to give a thumbs up. If you think that statement is false, I want you to give me a thumbs down. We've got a good mix here. We've got a good mix of folks. So let me tell you that that is a myth. If somebody really wants to die by suicide, they will find a way to do it. You know what? If somebody really wants to die by suicide, there's generally a sign. They're generally changing behavior. They're talking about it. They're looking for ways to die. There are some clues that we need to be able to pick up on. They may not have shared it with you. They may have shared it with somebody else. Or they may be sharing it with you that they're not sharing with somebody else. By being there and listening and supporting them, you're giving them an opportunity to talk to you about it. It's going to give you the opportunity to ask them about it. And I'm going to get to the asking part. I'm not jumping ahead in myself. But there are generally some signs. So that's why we're doing this training. And I'm going to talk to you about what those signs are so you can keep it on now as you're interacting with different folks. Speaking about suicide may lead someone to take his or her life. If I ask them about it, whoa! That's going to give them the idea. Thumbs up if you think that's true. Thumbs down if you think that's false. You'll see a lot of thumbs down. Fantastic. I'm so glad. All right. Asking about having suicidal thoughts is not going to plant the idea in somebody's head. It's not like, oh gosh, it had to be eight. Oh, why didn't I do that before? Okay. So if you're asking somebody about it, it's not going to cause them to have suicidal thoughts any more than if I'm asking somebody if they're having chest pains that they suddenly develop and dying because I ask the question. What it does do is it puts out the welcome mat and provides an opportunity for them to talk to you about it. Okay? There are talkers and there are do-mers. If you think that's true, give me a thumbs up. If you think that's false, give me a thumbs down. There are talkers and there are do-mers. I see a lot of, like, either in between, or not at all, not at all. Okay, I see thumbs up. I see thumbs down. Okay. This was kind of a tough one, right? Yeah. All right. So I'm going to tell you to admit. Okay. There are talkers and there are do-mers. That's not necessarily true. All right. Like I said before, when somebody's thinking about suicide, something's changing. They may be talking to you about it. Their behavior may be changing. They may be talking to somebody else. I've heard folks just in the various places where I've worked with, that I've worked with, oh, they're just talking about it. Oh, they're just trying to get attention when they just need something. You know what? If somebody is making a statement about taking their life to get attention, there's a problem. Okay. Whether they're thinking about suicide or not, they're struggling with something and we need to figure out what that is. Okay. Anytime somebody is making a statement of nobody will care if I'm gone. You know, nobody will miss me. Things are never going to get any better. If they're making those statements, those are serious statements and we need to take them seriously. Okay. And we need to confront that head-on. If they're just trying to get attention, again, that's a pretty serious way to do it. They're struggling with something. Let's figure out what that is. If it is suicidal thoughts that they're struggling with, let's get them connected with a mental health professional who can help me out. Here, she won't die by suicide because we've got a list of reasons why they won't. They won't do it because they've got a vacation plan or they've got kids that love them and promised me they wouldn't. Okay. I see some thumbs down. If you think that's true, thumbs up. If you think it's false, thumbs down. Thumbs down. That's fantastic. Y'all are catching on here. Okay. So if somebody is having suicidal thoughts and they're in such a deep, dark place, they are so depressed, so down, they are so upset that they are thinking about taking his or her own life, rational thinking has gone out the window. Okay. So all that, you know, their family might love them. They might have kids that are important to them. They may have plans to go on vacation. They're not thinking about any of that. They are in such a dark place that rational thought has just gone out the window. Okay. And like I mentioned earlier with suicide being the 10th leading cause of death and we only hear about it in the news when it's, you know, somebody famous or has some notoriety of some sort. If you think back over the last year or so with the different celebrities who have taken their life, they had those things. They had family members. They were successful. They had plans. They were doing all that. They still died by suicide. Okay. So just because those things are in place doesn't mean that the individual isn't thinking about suicide. It doesn't mean that they won't act on those thoughts. Any questions about the myths before I move on to the save part? The signs asking the question, validating and expediting care. Any questions about the myths or the statistics so far? Okay. Okay. So moving on. So save. SABE, we're going to start with the signs. Signs of suicidal thinking. Okay. What that looks like. Then we're going to go on to asking the most important question of all. Validating the veterans experience and then the E is all about encouraging treatment and expediting care. And I'll show you how to do that. So there are going to be some things, some warning signs that we need to take a look at that these are important and then we've got some that are like, oh my gosh that is so critical, we need to address it right now. Okay. So signs of suicidal thinking. So if somebody is struggling with any of these things, it doesn't mean that they're having suicidal thoughts, but they might. Okay. So think about somebody who's feeling hopeless. Things are never going to get any better. Any of you work with veterans, talk with veterans who have said, and this is just hopeless, whether they're applying for benefits or if it's a medical condition or trying to make a change in their life one way or the other. Anxiety, agitation, sleepiness, mood swings, folks having difficulty sleeping, either too much or too little. Folks who have anger to, something that might annoy us at a level three or four, but they're responding at a seven, eight, nine, they've gone over the top with their anger, like they're really agitated about stuff where they used to be cool, common, collected, but now everything sets them off and you feel like you're having to walk on eggshells with them. Feeling like there's no reason to live and nothing to live for. Getting older, about all these health issues, all my family members performing and passed away. What am I here for? What's the purpose in life? I talked about the anger and the rage. Okay. Engaging and risky behaviors without thinking. Folks who are mixing alcohol with their medication, driving too fast, they don't care. Riding motorcycles without their helmets, doesn't matter to them. Weaving in and out of traffic, no big deal. They don't care. Doesn't matter. If I get hurt, nobody will care. Increasing their drug or alcohol use? I'm not a veteran. Let me just put that out there, but from what I hear, alcohol is in the military. That's what I hear. That's what I hear right now. I wasn't there. So drinking or alcohol use? I realize that that's part of the culture, but what if it's increasing? Okay. Or what if now they're mixing in with their medication where they didn't before? Or maybe they, you know, just drank on the weekends, but now they're drinking where they're waiting to. When you see these little changes, it's something to be aware of. With drawing from family and friends, maybe they don't come into meetings all the time. Maybe they were showing up to work all the time, never called in sick. Maybe they get together with family functions, and let's get together for the holidays. Nah. I'll just stay in my room. No, I'm not going to stay. No, I'm calling in sick. What are some examples that you all have seen with the veterans that you're working with, or family members, or friends, or neighbors that don't have to be veterans? What are some examples of these? You're listing PTSD symptoms. The only thing that's not on there that's blurring PTSD is that you can correct me. Feeling like there's no reason to live. That would be a trigger when I was talking to a vet. All the rest of them were standing there. Okay. So the hopelessness kind of falls into that with the no reason to live. What's the point? Okay. I don't see depression up there. It's going to, it is included. Just give me a minute. Let's look into another slide. Frustration. Frustration. Okay. You work with some folks who have experienced frustration. It's expressed frustration before. Okay. Isolation. Isolation. Absolutely. I've had my friends on here. Nobody's listening to me. They're older friends, really. In fact, they're older than me. They're the fathers of some of my friends. And when they found out that they had the incurable disease, they went and shot themselves and did not tell their family nothing. In fact, they had to go out five, six days later and find them in the woods. But they were in the car with the gun now. I'm so sorry to hear that. But that's medical diagnoses when folks are struggling with different medical conditions. That can definitely be a trigger. I heard that nobody's listening to me. Yeah. I hear that a lot. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So feeling hopeless, feeling isolated or like people just jump along, having no sense of purpose. These are some really important warning signs. Yes, ma'am? Giving away prize possessions. What's there? Military. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a big warning sign. Big red blackberry. When folks are giving away their prize possessions. Anybody have a T-shirt in their closet from, I don't know, 10 years ago? Oh, yeah. Favorite concert or branch of the military or something? Absolutely. Just one. Just one, right? I've had a bunch. Trust me. But like, I can clean out everything else. I'm keeping that same tune. It's got holes in it. It's stained. It's whatever. But it means something to me. It represents something. Right? When folks are holding on to these things, it may not have any monetary value at all or might. And they start giving things away. Absolutely. That is a warning sign. Yes, sir? I see this sign. They say, what makes a veteran feel hopeless a lot of time? When they go to VA for help, they don't get help. They get turned away. And see a lot. I mean, these signs on here, I mean, the training is good if the VA have people in the VA that go by. A lot of people in the VA don't go by. Now, if they come, a veteran needs help. And they overlook them and the veteran keep going. And you try to get the veteran involved and they go. And a lot of them say, well, I don't need to be in the VA and I'm not going to get any help. And I'm trying to. And that makes them feel hopeless. And you have a veteran try to talk to them. You know. And it's hard to talk to a veteran that after he's gone to the VA, trying to get help, and every time he go, he get to say, he get turned away. I mean, you know. And it makes him feel that way. Well, I do hate to hear that. I can't speak for any facility other than ours here in Orlando. Because they made me feel that way. I'm talking from experience. That's how it made me feel. That is not what we want to have happen. I can't speak for any facility other than Orlando where I am. I know that our doors are open. Folks can come in. They can get care of that same day. You show up. You tell somebody you need help. We are going to help you. We will figure out the paperwork later. We'll deal with the enrollment piece. We'll deal with whatever. Somebody needs help. We are going to see them. We are going to make sure that they get the care they need. So I am very sorry that is not what we want to have happen. So you've listed systemic symptoms. What about the side effects of medication? I'm going to leave that to the med providers. That is outside my realm of expertise. I want to work on the general these are some signs for everybody. The layman doesn't have to be a clinician or a med provider to see that these things can happen. We want to keep it general for the topic that we are focused on today. Meds absolutely have side effects. I think it's really important for the patient to talk to the doctor about what those might be. I'm not going to address that because I want to do medicine. I'm going to stay in my lane because I don't get any trouble with anybody. There are folks from Moreland over here they will tattle on me. I do see your hands, but I want to keep going because I know it all in the time. So these are some of the things that are a bit different from other things. When you're seeing these things in the individual that you're interacting with, red flags, exclamation points behind these. We need to make sure that they get care. So if the person is telling you that they're thinking about suicide or if they're thinking about killing themselves, well if they're telling you that they are, that's a big exclamation point and we need to take that seriously and we need to do that as we move on. If they are actively looking for ways to die, doing google searches or watching youtube videos or asking questions and they're trying to figure out which way would be less painful, which way would be the quickest, what should I do when they are actively putting energy into finding a way to kill themselves, big red flag we need to get them help immediately. Talking about death or dying they're talking to you about that or family members excuse me taking those risky behaviors self-destructive behaviors particularly when it involves alcohol drugs or weapons because alcohol and drugs are going to reduce those inhibitions so some things that they may not have done if they weren't drinking but they are drinking so maybe they're doing something that they wouldn't have done otherwise they may be a little more impulsive. Anybody in here and you don't have to this is not self-disclosure I just want you to draw it out you've ever been drinking and then you ever did something while you were drinking the next day you're like I probably shouldn't have done that it's like right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? discern kind of like what's going on does really just need to kind of get something off his chest or are you struggling. Anytime you have a question I'm gonna say let's let's send a health and safety checklist. Let's get a mental health professional involved or law enforcement involved to come and check on the individual. If you if you've got any questions, do you have family members there in the house? Will you let them talk to a family member? Talk to them until somebody else is there. If somebody's calling in the middle of the night it's not because you know they're just bored. You want to say hey, they're generally dealing with something? Yes, you want to apply here in Florida, but what happens when somebody's living in a locale that offers assisted suicide assistance or they offer that? I mean you're trying to talk them out of it and they're living in a locale that says hey, this is the way to do it. You know it's like somebody just brought up earlier that if somebody's you know having medical issues and stuff like that and they feel hopeless because it's like this has never gotten better or whatever they have. Since the suicide, there are a handful of states and you may know that actually it's legal. There's also the veteran homes that are out in some of those states and the veteran homes are funded partially by the VA. But I can tell you that the VA does not support assisted suicide. It came up with our general counsel. So the VA does not support assisted suicide. That's important to know. But in counseling that acts as an obstacle. That's the only thing I'm going to say because you're trying to incorporate certain types of common sense with people and you're trying to readjust certain things and at the same time in certain areas there's a lot of social input. This is an option. So the assisted suicide thing is a legal thing in the VA but at the same time there are a lot of other areas that influence individuals. Social media, family problems and more. So I think assisted suicide is just one more thing that will influence people who may be considered that. But legally to be able to support it. But when you talk about counseling, I think you have to consider all the different plethora of different things that are in the nation today. I mean there's just a lot. One of the things that I'm going to encourage you to keep in mind is the presentation that we're focused on today is the in general. And what to look for and then what to do about it when you see it. That's going to be the assisted suicide is a more specific individualized issue. This is for somebody who could need some help and are considering taking his or her own life and how you can be of assistance to that veteran in saving his or her life. Yes. What do you do for a veteran that is a bit confronted by this war and wants? Who displays the suicide tendencies when you question a lot of these things? There's no way I feel myself. I feel somebody else about myself. I'm going to address that. I'm going to be asking like, well, who? Because you know, I'm just a New Zealand clinician and this is what I do. But you know, I would definitely, if they're thinking about killing somebody else, yeah, of course, let's talk about that. That's an important topic that needs to be addressed by somebody who could do something about that. Yeah. You did the right thing. Absolutely. So moving on to the A and the same as asking the all important question. Okay. Are you thinking about killing yourself? Now that can be a really difficult question to ask. Are you thinking about killing yourself? Notice I'm not asking, I'm not encouraging you to ask. Are you thinking about harming yourself? Because somebody can harm themselves and that's totally different than killing themselves. Totally different than suicide. This is pretty straightforward to the point. Are you thinking about killing yourself? We want to be direct. We want to open up the conversation because we need to know. Are they thinking about that? And if we're all shy and quiet and like, okay, let's talk about it. What are we telling the individual? Most of the time, as far as the veterans concern anyway, when that question is asked, the veteran is going to say no, because he or she are afraid that if they answer yes, they're going to be taken away. And that may be? Not maybe. It's no. I've worked with a whole lot of veterans who have answered that question. Absolutely. And as a mental health professional, folks also know how to listen to what the answers are. And we can ask in other ways. We can reassure them of what constitutes needing to be hospitalized versus not. I mean, there are conversations that can be had. But again, I'm not talking to, and I have no idea whether anybody in here is a mental health professional. I know one mental health professional in Europe. I don't know if the entire audience is a mental health professional, okay? If you're not, you don't have to know how to do that. I'm just encouraging you to ask the all-important question. And even for folks who have asked this a hundred times, it can still be a very difficult question to ask. So I want to give you an opportunity to ask it. I'm not turning this into a therapy session. I don't want you to turn to your neighbor and start taking a follow-up step. I do want us to ask the question, and I do see her here. I do want to give you the opportunity to practice verbalizing the question, because it can be uncomfortable to ask. So as a group, I'm going to ask this to read it together off the screen. Ready? One. Two. Three. All right. There you go. If you've never asked it before, you've had your first. Nope. Never. Yes, ma'am. I find, and again, I am a nurse, and I've worked with veterans for 36 years now, and I can say that you would be absolutely shocked, a number that just want you to ask. Yes. They want you to validate. They want you to say that you're listening. Yes. And it's not, you know, and if they say yes, you know, you can't be shocked about it, you've got to go on and find them help. But it's, everyone spends so much time thinking that they're not going to want to be asked. And I can tell you truthfully, many, many, many over the years have reinforced how much that means that we did ask. Absolutely. I agree completely with it. Remember the myths and realities, and if I ask the question, it's going to be, they're going to do it. They're going to think about it. If we ask the question, it opens up the opportunity for them to say yes. Lots of folks really do want to answer that question. There's kind of this little side note. I don't know if you've ever heard Kevin Hines, and I did see your answer. I'm sure. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Kevin Hines, but he is a suicide attempt survivor. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the few survivors that has done that. And he's written several books and created movies, and he has spent his life telling his story. And the short version is he was on the Golden Gate Bridge thinking about suicide. He was thinking about jumping. If you crawl over the railing, there's a little ledge there, and he kept thinking, if somebody would just come up and ask me, if somebody would just show that they cared, I won't jump. And about that time, here comes a woman walking up to him, and she's, sir, and he's like, oh, somebody, somebody's asking me. Will you take my picture? Oh, he takes her picture. She says thank you, and she leaves. And he jumps. What? And he survived. Faith-based, I'm going to say thank you, Lord, that he survived, because now he is spending his life talking to others about the importance of asking that question, showing you care. It's a very important question one has to ask. Now, had you read it together, while there are other ways that you can word it, or are you thinking about suicide, or have you thought of taking your own life? However you're going to ask that question if the time comes for you to do so. Please be direct. Again, we're not already harming yourself. Are you thinking about ways that you could hurt yourself? There are so many things that folks can do to harm themselves that are totally different than ways to die by suicide. Please ask the question. Yes, sir. Yeah, I was just going to make that point. You have to be very direct. Yes. You can't say, well, you're not thinking about killing yourself, are you? No, you've got to be very direct to them. You read my slides ahead of time. So the things that I am going to encourage you to not do, don't ask the question as you're looking for a no response, as the gentleman was saying. You're not thinking about killing yourself, are you? What am I telling the person to say to me? Don't tell me. Because if you tell me, I've got to do something about it. I don't know what to do about it. So please don't tell me. Also, don't ask them just as the conversation is dying down, just as they're about to leave, or you're about to go. Oh, see you later. You weren't thinking about killing yourself, are you? Okay, see you. We don't want to do that. So you're shutting the person down. You are not putting that welcome mat out there for them to talk to you about the thoughts they're struggling with. What you're doing is you're shutting them down. You're saying, please don't talk to me. Please don't tell me what you're thinking. What we do want to do is we want to ask the question but tell them why you're asking. I noticed that you've not been coming to the meetings lately and you used to be here all the time like we've really missed you. Is something going on? And then as they're talking and you're listening and the conversation goes, have it flow into the conversation. Well, the things that you're telling me about, I've heard of those similar stories from a lot of other veterans and some of those veterans have thought about suicide. Have you been thinking about suicide? Have you been thinking about taking your own life? Work it into the conversation. We don't want it to be an interrogation where they're sitting in the chair and shining a spotlight on them. Are you thinking about killing yourself? Like we're not doing that. We want to be able to open up that conversation. We want to reduce the stigma. If it's okay for you to talk about it, we're letting them know it's okay for them to talk about it. Okay? So like I said, that can be a really difficult question to ask. If you have never asked that question or if you've asked it a hundred times, it can be a difficult question to ask. Anybody familiar with ducks? Anybody ever see a duck on the water? Okay. If you think about the water and the duck is floating along, swimming along on the surface, the duck's just kind of gliding around really gracefully across the top. What's happening under the water? Working, that's a little feat, right? They're just paddling, working as hard as they can. Think about a duck, okay? So if you're interacting with somebody and you're concerned about them and your radar is going off and you're like, oh my gosh, this is like that stuff that I heard about at the D&B conference. Like I'm seeing the warning signs and I feel like I'm supposed to ask the question and gosh, this is the point. And you're really nervous and like, what am I going to do? If I ask this question and the answer, yes. Like what am I going to do? On the outside, cool, calm and collected. On the inside, you could be the nervous Nellie, your heart is racing, your mouth is dry, your foot's shaking under the table and you really hope that they can't see that because you're just so nervous and anxious. It's okay to be nervous, it's okay to be anxious, okay? Stay calm on the outside. Never let them see you swim, kind of thing. Maintain eye contact with the person that you're talking with. If you're really concerned about that person, let it show in the way you're talking to them. If they're talking to you and you're looking off somewhere else and you've got your face on your phone and you're swiping on social media and you're scrolling up like, oh, look at that, Uncle Joe posted that. Oh, look at this. Are you letting that person know that you care? Mm-hmm. Do you think that they're going to feel comfortable opening up to you about something as sensitive as thinking about taking their life? Yeah. Right. But what if you stop what you're doing and you put down your phone or whatever it is you've got with you and you face them and you make eye contact and you listen. What kind of message is that going to send? Interesting. Did I hear them? Did I care? Somebody is listening. I'm interested. Absolutely. You're giving them your time or somebody who's struggling for thoughts of taking their life. Remember that number. As of today, if we're thinking 20 a day 4,300 people have died the veterans have died by suicide. What if you just take the time put down your phone and talk to them and ask the difficult question. Show them you care. Have that open posture. If I'm standing here and I'm talking to somebody and I'm tackling my foot and I'm shuffling back and forth. Body language. Right. Keep your body language open. Lean in. Make that eye contact. Let them know you care. Be supportive and encouraging. Please don't judge them. Please don't judge them. Even if you think that they have no reason to be feeling this way just what? They're feeling this way. Okay. The B is validating. Let's validate their experience. Repeat back to them what they just shared with you. I hear you telling me you're having a really difficult time. I hear that you're in pain. I understand you're telling me that you miss your spouse or your battle buddies didn't come home and I'm telling you this. Give it back to them. Let them know you've hurt them. Validate for them that they are hurting. Again, don't judge. Anybody in here ever been like angry or upset and you're like just really tripped off about something and somebody's like get over it. Don't be mad about that. Did that make your anger go away? No. Okay. So just because you don't think they should be feeling that way or thinking that way doesn't mean that they're not. Reflect that back to them. I hear that you're having a tough time. I hear that it's not easy for you. Validate it and remind them that there is help available to them. Treatment works. There are no quick easy answers. There's not a magic pill that anybody can prescribe and the question and the sadness and everything that they're dealing with is going to go away today and they will never experience it again. But things can get better. Treatment works. Be there for them. And the E, the final letter is encouraging treatment and expediting care if needed. Okay? So what to do if somebody is suicidal? Don't keep it a secret. Tell a family member that somebody had worked. Tell a supervisor if they're in an imminent crisis don't leave them alone. Stay with them when you were asking like somebody's on the phone and you're talking to them. Don't leave them alone. Don't end that call until somebody else is there. Try to get that person to seek help. We're going to talk about ways to do that. The crisis line is available. Law enforcement is available. The VA is available. Encourage them to go to the nearest emergency room or go with them. The veteran's crisis line. Anybody heard of that? Okay, good. Anybody know the number? 1-800-273-1855 There you go. Let's say it again. 1-800-273-855 Press 1. Press 1. Press 1. Who's pressing 1? The veterans are. So the 1-800-273-855 that's the national suicide prevention hotline. That's for anybody. Veterans are going to press 1. That's going to connect them with the veterans crisis line. That's going to get them connected to the local VA hospital. Yes, ma'am? One suggestion we have is put it in your cell phone because you're not going to remember it. Absolutely. Have you all been to my presentation before? Absolutely. I'm going to ask you. I'm going to invite you to put this number into your phone. Yes, ma'am? I have a question. I deal with veterans and I talk with several veterans and they say when they call that number that they get them on hold. We try really hard not to do that. But in all honesty we have X number of responders and if we have more calls than we have responders we'd rather answer the phone and say hold on a second than not answer it at all. We also have backup centers. We have three veterans crisis line centers but then we have local backup centers for when our centers just have more calls than they can take. We answer as many calls as we absolutely can the first time we don't want to put folks on hold. Logistically sometimes we just have more calls than we have responders to answer the call. We don't like for that to happen but it does. Veterans can also text. Veterans can also get online and I'll share those with you in just a minute. Yes ma'am? One of my questions was what happened when you called that line? But does the VA have a mobile response team? Some VAs are partnering with local law enforcement where they go out with the law enforcement. Some law enforcement just have the crisis intervention teams not necessarily a VA staff person. So that's dependent on the VA and what part of the country and where they are. Can I recommend a mobile response team? Well that would be totally awesome for all of us. I'm afraid to send that up the food chain and talk to Congress and let them send us the more money trust me. We would definitely put some resources to use for sure. So I do see hands and I definitely will get to your questions and I want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity. But when it comes, I want to finish up to any part. So when we're talking with folks if you happen to be engaging with somebody who has a weapon again we talked about firearms safety comes first. Yours included. If somebody has a firearm on them and they're thinking and you're aware of that get yourself to a safe place call law enforcement if you're law enforcement in the room that's your job to deal with that. If you're not a law enforcement in the room call law enforcement that's their job let them deal with that. If somebody has actively overdosed or done something else to poison themselves in some sort of way of any medical care let the ambulance come and address that that's not the time to go well so you have the thoughts of killing yourself. And this lady at the VAB conference she said that I should validate your experience it's been tough for you. If they've already acted on it they need medical attention please let the medical professionals deal with that. Absolutely. Well, minus the gun situation I don't want you to put your safety at risk I'm very serious about that work. Again we've got the number here Veterans Crisis Line 1-800-273-1855 So as you go through when I encourage folks to call the Crisis Line a veteran can call, a family member can call, a friend can call, an anonymous person can call if you're working with a veteran and you know you think that it could help the veteran to talk to the responder dial the number with them like here let me sit with you let me call these people to the veteran. Hey Crisis Line yeah I'm working with this veteran sure hold on here she is and pass the phone over to the veteran okay when the veterans call the Crisis Line and the responders they are or they can text or they can get online the VCL responder sends that information to the local VA so if the veteran is in Orlando it comes to me. If they're in Tampa it goes to the Tampa phone or in South Dakota it goes to the South Dakota folks okay and it lets the suicide prevention coordinator at that facility know hey veteran in your area called the Crisis Line and this is what they called about and then the suicide prevention coordinator at every VA reaches out to that veteran hey we know you called the Crisis Line we wanted to check in with you how are you doing okay maybe it's all I had a fight with my spouse and I just needed somebody to talk to you or maybe they were struggling with suicide first responders needed to show up and they ended up in the hospital with still call regardless of what was going on we're going to touch base with that person here in Orlando we are busy, busy, busy with the Crisis Line which is awesome job security for me but it also makes that we are helping a lot of veterans out there we are within the top ten in the country for responding to Crisis Line we're number two in Florida North Florida South Georgia we have like less than 200 okay we have over 1500 calls that we've responded to veterans get followed up with yes I have a question and then a couple comments first of all can we do anything about simplifying the numbers so that it's more easily remembering I know it's resources and people already have it and there's a lot of other consideration for the resources applied and comment wise is I just wanted to validate for so many points that you've brought up that are workable and applicable that people are not usually aware of that you know they can now work or think with I think that's valuable my last comment was I wanted to respond to the gentleman back there on medication I know this is outside your career view but there is a real HR 100 veteran veteran prevention open medication prevention act and they are going to be studying I've communicated the past of that they're going to be studying whether there's any links between the suicides and medications simply because the first side effect on the most of the drugs is suicide and has depression and anxiety so I think they should at least take a look and hopefully they will so can we side effects as advertised on TV and Moscow and thank you very much for your comments and as far as the getting a different number that's being talked about by the powers that be logistically it's there's a lot to work out with that 9-1-1 is taken, 2-1-1 is taken, 6-1-1 is taken what do we do and how do we and then how do we get that out and we have to re-brand everything know that it is a topic of conversation folks are looking at it and trying to so 855 spells yes it does yes the 1-800-273-8255 T-A-L-K so who in here has a cell phone with them I'm going to invite you to pull that out and I'm going to invite you to program this number into your phone excellent fantastic some goodies some swag if you will I'll take out and spread out on a table somewhere that you're welcome to take one of when you leave crisis line cards like you see in the picture here are among the things that I brought today I want you to pass the number out pass the cards out even though I brought some wherever you go back your local suicide prevention coordinator in the local VA they have cards, ask them for some pass them out, give them out like handy on Halloween the only way that this number is going to help a veteran is if the veteran has the number but I encourage you to put it in your phone because if you run out of cards or you're out in the middle somewhere of you're not even working but you just happen to run into somebody who's like oh hey and you find out you really wish I had that number we don't go anywhere without our phones these days so if you have it programmed into your phone you've already got it so if you'll program veterans crisis line how many times one, 800 two, seven, three eight, two five, five if you want to put down a little note section veterans press one all of us give out basically gift packs when we go to our state conventions as well as like we got here at national and then one of the best things in the world is talking to your crisis prevention person and getting the swag to tuck in those gift bags because then you actually have a lot of it at home to any end out our crisis prevention person actually gave us bags, a lot of the swag we put in and it actually went that way it covers your entire state in a matter of minutes absolutely, absolutely and it's fun stuff that veterans like to have depending on you know what your site has or your area has available there are koozies and potato chip clips for bags and pig stands and bandanas for riding motorcycles and trying to slime parts all kinds of different things gun locks gun locks are available as well I did not bring any gun locks but gun locks are available so I just want to make sure that you've got some additional resource information if you go to VA.gov you can find out information about the mental health services that are available we also have vet centers are y'all familiar with vet centers yes, perfect depending on what time we're talking about what the vet centers are we also have make the connection where veterans can get online and talk to other veterans and family members about different topics, health issues specific for PTSD we've got the ptsd.va.gov so there's a list of resources available for veterans who are struggling with PTSD and here's all the information about the veterans crisis line so the 1-800-273-8255 veterans press 1 they can go online veteranscrisisline.net and chat with somebody online, they can text because a lot of folks prefer to text instead of call maybe they want that little level of anonymity where okay I don't know they want the other person on the other end of the phone to hear me crying involved in like a baby and like store them like I am so let me just text it out to them, that's fine again, those same things get routed to the suicide prevention coordinator at the local VA and then reach out to those veterans and then the veteranscrisisline.net resource locator you click on that you can look up any state, any zip code whatever you want and you can find the local VA you can find the local suicide prevention coordinator figure out who's in the area where you are you'll have the name, the phone number contact information you can call the veterans as long as we're getting help so just to recap that acronym, what's the S stand for? signs signs of suicidal thinking, what's the A? S what are we asking? K B and expediting absolutely so hopefully you've learned a few things during this presentation if you've got some questions it's going to be a great time to ask I saw the gentleman in the back then I saw your hand and then I saw yours in your research have you found any correlation and this is specific to veterans between crime and the judicial system? I personally have not some of our VJO, the veterans justice outreach program may have some of those statistics I don't have any the reason for the question is if you and I are convicted of the same crime and I'm a veteran and you're not I'm going to serve eight years more than you because I'm a veteran no I don't have a research department of justice 2017 study okay I don't have the research on that one I can tell you that I work with our veterans justice outreach folks one of the things that can increase suicidal risk is having some legal issues I'm going to lead all of that to the VJO person I know that we work really hard to help the veteran not be involved in the system to get them back out into the community I'm not going to ladies and gentlemen before we ask any more questions keep them within the realm of the topic being spoken that way we don't waste anybody's time and those that have a question need to be answered can get an answer before the supplementary experts leave the DOJ question excellent question I've got a note just take it down we'll follow up and see what we've got to do with that keep your questions pertinent to the doctor thank you are you open to tips and tricks tips and tricks I'm keeping veterans alive absolutely cool Karen how would you pass this over I have had looked down the barrel of the 38 when I asked the veteran are you thinking about killing yourself reached in for 38 hours and I know the fit they went like that I learned that there are tips and tricks to avoiding them I asked the question are you thinking about killing yourself you want to disarm the vet and this is how you do this is a state of Indiana license to carry handgun life can't see you I haven't owned a federal service 30 years ago I got this card to use as a tip you fill out your card and say have you ever seen one of these they will pull theirs out and then you're talking about your handgun that's how you disarm let me see your teeth and if you're in court you know how to drop the clip you drop the clip and you head on the gun back then you ask the question excuse me now you can tell me gentlemen here yes one of our service officers from chapter 123 from Marid Island Florida her son when he came out of the military committed suicide that's one of the reasons she's one of our service officers what we do and what she does she uses the number 22 and we will on special occasions 4th of July veterans of a Patriots of a Christmas we take 660 flags in different locations and we place them under each flag we place a solar light and of course when the sun goes down that will light up each flag each flag represents and there is a sign in front to make the public aware of what's going on each veteran each day that is killed and we have gotten a great response to that and we have been able to give your message or a similar message to hear that in itself as our own word I appreciate any outreach efforts to raise awareness I think you might know I'm very well made yes sir and pleasure I can know if the video and or slides have been made available so if you want the slides for the suicide prevention so there's a couple things so there's actually a prescribed suicide prevention training on YouTube and I'll send it to the light south publicly because it's actually provided to a lot of states that employ it as a trainer trainer so I'll give that to to light to get to you all I mean the entire your presentation on DAV's YouTube so it's not up tonight it'll be up tomorrow that's why you can know and basically what I did here to get a psych armor P.S.Y.C.H.A.R. M.L.R. it's a video somebody standing here much like I did with the information scrolling she takes much less time she's about 30 minutes when she's doing her psych armor dot com I do see YouTube hands I had this lady someone in the red shirt I was just wondering how long it takes for the S.P.S.C.H.A.R. to contact somebody back so what's the protocol on that when we're notified we have 24 hours to make our first attempt to contact we make up 2-3 if we're unable to contact the veteran for whatever reason then we send them a letter to say hey we're here please give us the call we've been trying to get in touch with you sorry the red shirt did you have your hand earlier yes I did she has a question I've had my hand up I'm so sorry I was not doing that on purpose I did not see it I wanted to say if you if you somebody said about getting the police can you get I think it was you talking about getting the police over or something like that mobile response you mean if they call and the person is suicidal the police go there's something called a safe in Florida safe and health check and the police officers in the state of Florida if you feel like somebody is endangering themselves on the site you can go and talk to the police officer and request a safe and health check and we've done that before and we have found people that are unconscious we have found people that have tried to kill themselves we've found all types of people so if you're concerned about somebody there is something called safe and health welfare check and any police officers in Florida is allowed to do that particular check so if somebody didn't point you back and you're calling a veteran and I've had it happen and they sound really depressed I do veterans treat the court and they sound really depressed I can't go on that I will call police officers and say hey I'm Debbie Mann I work for the Veterans Treatment Court I have a bed here that has not responded and I know he has been suicidal in the past can you please do a health and welfare check and they have done that and they have knocked on his door and my particular gentleman had taken something for pain I don't know how much he took for pain all I know is police officers and he's in the hospital but he's fine absolutely and if he's not fine they can take him to the hospital or call the ambulance we have wellness check in most states yes thank you for your presentation I just wanted to offer another resource and you had one of the apps of that but the VA has launched a beautiful suite of apps and if you do the VA launch pad just put that one on your phone and then go down and say improve my mental health and it's so many apps you had that one up there but it's so many there that can help you you can go through these apps yourself I mean kudos to the VA for doing this I mean it's a lot of them there are a lot I think you also loved you said that there are some in there that have the safety plan in there so a veteran can create his own safety plan when they're struggling they can refer to that safety plan prior to having to act on something and I saw another gentleman yesterday I made a mistake I took the gun from the man but I didn't send him no way I took him to my office and I sat down and talked with him now that was because I was just at my CPE school CPE school and it was through talking to him I know he was going to do something wrong so I took him to my office I sat down and I talked to him and he went on home and the next month he called me and ordered me to marry him and he came my friend and I did not give him that gun back until maybe five years later he said I'm okay now I'm not going to do this thing to myself and he came by my house I gave him the gun he said I'm going to give it to my sister I took his word for it but I won't do that no more I didn't send myself to the room sometimes you think that training that you did I was doing that he didn't help that time I'm glad it worked out it worked out both of them I just wanted to say that sitting here kind of brought that to me it kind of touched me I don't want any of us in this room to take for granted because we are in this room with great events and what she's talking about even Superman had kryptonite and he had somebody to come along he had one from time to time he had pastors and clinicians and whatever I noticed in my own life that I had a tendency to save everybody else and then forget about myself and so every time I have to go back and become more of that player I get back because there's a couple things he said that kind of bothered me and just go back and just continue to seek help and just continue to deal with your own issues and your own stuff because a lot of times we deal with other people and so that's an excellent reminder that's a good thing and thank you for bringing that up it's an excellent reminder I addressed this like early on and it's a nice way to bring it back around none of us are exempt from this this could happen to anybody your friends, your neighbor, you your children, your parents, your spouse your siblings we have 800-273-8255 it's for everybody so veterans press one if not that number is still available to you I understand before other questions that ladies and gentlemen the national commander has just texted me and said he needs to see me immediately so Mr. Washington would you mind closing you've got to tell 445 you and Janet ask more questions I'm sorry I have to leave but when the boss calls I've got to go away from everything you've learned today is that we're not subject matter experts we didn't train you to be know how to recognize and know who to call ladies and gentlemen thank you for attending I'm not dismissing you because there's questions that need to be asked and comrade Janet I have asked for them to come to do this seminar we give you knowledge as a chaplain so that you have chaplain's just more than a position guys it gets deep and this is just a part of a bigger picture so I want to thank comrade Washington for coming I want to thank you personally thank you for coming here and doing my work before you leave phone number I'm going to regret this alright now all I ask is I want to give you my phone number when you text me leave many of you I'm not going to remember who you are so say this is who I am this is the department I'm with and I'll say got it 706 457 702 0 now I do have life lock so I'm not concerned from that aspect that's it alright text me first alright let me know who you are ladies and gentlemen thank you I'm going to turn it over to comrade and chan thanks again guys appreciate it y'all and hopefully we'll get together before y'all take off I don't always, who wants me to do it by the way I hope we can do it today though I wanted to say that I this is the few appointments because I need to work with the excuse that you have the video and I think it's great and I can't emphasize enough I think it's great because it's taken away the excuse of my missing because it worked for something like that and again it's got a number of different apps on there that I've been looking at and so forth so I think it's a great idea so folks don't know about it if you could explain it shortly for the apps the iPad in general then the apps would go with it I'm not going to be the second matter expert on that iPad I turn on my computer and that's about the extent of technology for me and I'm not engaging in direct care with the veteran where I'm presenting it I do know that we have some iPads available for certain veterans under certain conditions but do you have more information? well the apps apps I'm interested in apps I think link that one should be familiar with many years ago the V8 has a bunch of websites right now it's the primary who knows what it is v8.gov get the v8.gov it will link you to everything benefits, health, suicide my office, minority veterans you name it v8.gov is your one stop shop yep and here's the specifically this is not the v8.gov it's www.v8.gov www.v8.gov so you can find your local suicide prevention coordinator the me out there and whatever other area that's where you go to find that person yes ma'am we're in Richmond, Virginia and what they've done at RVA is wonderful we service a lot of our mental health care which considers to be a community group that comes in they're homeless that turns who knows streets. And so we've got a lot of issues going on and you never know what the person is thinking. When I made your training, you got to remember not to be on top of the staircase when you're in front of them. Look out what they got on, see if there are any bulges or anything for guns, because they may have hit them. There's just so many things that you have to be really careful with and not take everything into your own hands. But we call 804-675-5000 in Richmond, Virginia for the VA. The very first thing that comes on is the suicide hot water. That's the first thing. And they text you back and we have the mobile situation going on. And then if you walk in, within that first 20 minutes, you sign the little ledger in front of a lady, someone comes out in 20 minutes and then we also advise them to go to the ER if they need something and they can get their medicines or whatever right away. So someone sees them ASAP. And it's been a long time coming but finally we're seeing some great and then they have steps where they see clinicians going into different levels. So then they can help the level that that that turn is in, not necessarily another person. Yep, is everybody different in the committee for you to message a different person? So we're hoping that it goes across to these states. And the colleagues, everybody's cards recognize all those in my state. Glad to hear it. Yes, I'd just like to go back to the statement that you made about the crisis line and the crowdedness where people were not able to answer the first. And you said you had local, I guess, symptoms where they could take the overhaul of the phone? Why would a call go on hold? I mean I used to manage calls and I was wondering why are they not just immediately going to the overhaul? Because the overflows get full too. We have so many. There are not enough number of responders in the area. Sometimes we have more calls. Those are rare circumstances at least from what I'm hearing. I don't work on the crisis line inside. I'm on the after they call the crisis line that's when they show up on my radar. Right. But it's rare, but it does happen every now and again. And unfortunately, we got a lot of folks that are starting while I said we need people to deal with. And I just have a question regarding the challenges. I didn't get your time, I apologize for that, for another commitment, but I want to know did you do a self-help before you talked about the unsafe, the apprehensive state? Did you do a self-help to how the chaplain should take care of themselves because it is hard to serve as someone else without knowing the proper things to take care of yourself and self-help? So I'm going to address that in just one second. Just a few more questions to wind down. Who has more questions with Janet? And I want to wind down with a couple things I'm addressing. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. I don't have no questions. I'm getting ready to go too. I had a purpose for coming to this meeting because I think that every chaplain needs to be certified as a service officer. You don't have to do the plans, but your people will need some information. You can get the right information to them as you become a service officer. I've been a service officer for 20 years. I have been acclaimed since I became a chaplain, but I've been here some before. I became a chaplain. So you need to do that. And for this man, did you say something about somebody getting more time? South Carolina has a special court for veterans. They won't get no more time than they do because they go to the veteran court and they don't have to get any time. Yeah, that's better in this court. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of states are sorry they're better with cold things. Let's give Janet a hand. As Conrad Brad said, the swag that I told you I brought, I'm going to take it out and put it on one of the tables out there. And a lot of you, Conrad's wrapping up with the different things that need to be addressed. So just a couple of things real quick. I'm not going to get out of here. To your question, we are in the chaplain's training. So we're in the Department of Veterans Affairs. We have a doctor. Can we have, because you're talking to people, do you look at here? Hold on. Is that better? Yeah, it's okay. I don't mind using the mic. I'm under the weather, so pray for me. So in the VA, we have a chaplain, VA Chaplain Corps, right? National Veterans Chaplains. It's led by Dr. Chaplain, the chaplain doctor, everyone with the credentials there, Juliana Leschner. She's new. She took the chaplain in Koi's place, some of you may know who he is. And so I bring it up because when I go out in part of those organizations, specifically clergy leaders throughout the nation, pastors, we have a special training just for them. And that training goes into detail about how to take care of themselves before they go out and take care of someone else. Does that make sense? So my ask from you is, or my thing to you is, please know that my office, the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative, is the front door of all faith-based and out-of-profit community organizations for the VA. So whatever you need, come to Conrad. If I don't have it, which likely I don't, but I can get me to the right place. Does that make sense? So please know that. A couple of things I want to address real quick in my house. Take my seat and we'll close. I'm talking about chaplain training. I want you to know there's something called Special Services for Veteran and Families Program, SSVF, I'm with HUD VASH, right? Some of those programs. I want to pause and just share with you that it's chaplains and people who care about veterans. For years, they kept statistics on the number of veterans taking their lives, right? And for years, that number hasn't decreased, right? Am I giving them a little soapbox, but I think you will agree that now I think our country, our leadership, is recognizing that it takes more than programs because of people. It takes some type of hope and resiliency to deal with their issues in life. And I believe that that is why we have the Center for Faith. Because through faith, we can heal our veterans. And I really believe that. Yes ma'am. I'm here in Orlando and thanks a lot for cutting me down as a chaplain and asking me to try to get to the HUD VASH. They told her no because they wouldn't accept her because she's not an alcoholic or a drug addict. They haven't talked to a couple of other people who have gone through HUD VASH that do not have a drug alcohol problem. And when I shared that with her, she got really mad and I'm like, oh. Yeah. So, as I travel around in the last year and a half, going to different places, and I've been all over churches and organizations, we have to be authentic. And I want to be authentic with you, right? Here's authenticity. The VA is the second largest federal agency, right? When you have an organization that large, that means that when I come out to Orlando, I can reach out to Jan and say, hey, I think trained suicide prevention coordinator who has credentials, I can go to any state and get that. That's pretty large, right? Because of that, and I'm not making excuses, I'm just being authentic with you. There are going to be issues. And I can tell you the number of things I've written down throughout when I went to Mississippi, Oklahoma, I can go down the line. There are always going to be issues. Even with those veterans who go to the VA and can't get the proper support and customer service that they deserve, you can go to Wendy's sometimes and get poor service, right? And you can go back and get the red service, right? And I'm not making it right of that because that's not right. But I just want to share with you, we must encourage one another. And there's men and women of faith in this room, here I go. That's all right. That's why we are here, to encourage people, am I right? Yes. To encourage them and let them know that it's not over. The story isn't over. There's more to it than this, right? When they have a bad experience, we have to acknowledge it, right? And then say, hey, pick yourself back up. Because when I tell veterans it is, the same resiliency and intensity, and I can use all kinds of adjectives that get you through the military, through who can. When you serve one year or 20 years like I did, a cop that or not, guess what? I need you to use that same resiliency to fight for your life right here on this side as a civilian, right? So with that being said, we have homeless coordinators, get with me afterwards, I'll get the case and I'll get involved. Is that fair? Yes, ma'am. So just to let you guys know as well, when you come, so there's all kinds of situations when you go to the VA hospital, they don't always know how the programs and processes work. I still, before I transferred out of Philadelphia, I'm now in the Los Angeles area, we used to have veterans come in all the time. I went to the VA hospital, they turned me away because I'm not an Iraqi Afghanistan veteran. I said, it doesn't matter, that's not the requirement for VA hospital healthcare. Sometimes you need to utilize the patient advocate and the various social workers at the hospital because sometimes that person that they spoke to first didn't know the whole situation, didn't know all the resources available, they might only know if one or two and are thinking those are the only programs available where there's so many more. SSVF and whatnot covers a lot of things. If you don't mind, I'd like to just provide a couple of additional resources and I'm sorry if we're stepping back in after a meeting. Okay, so that's how much we're here encouraging and sharing. Absolutely. So another, so the VA's got a lot of great fact sheets on all kinds of different programs, whether it be benefits and whatnot, but going in line with everything here with the crisis hotline and everything, they also have a great program called Coaching Into Care. I love to hand out the pamphlets to veterans, family members, friends, because it actually talks you through how to approach a veteran and get them to seek help. And you can potentially use this outside of veterans as well, but they also have a phone number that you can call if you're a loved one, a friend, etc. They can go, hey, look, I've got a veteran who needs help. I don't know how to reach them. They can help you work through it. It's called Coaching Into Care. It's kind of easy to remember. Just Google it, you'll find the information on the VA's website, but they've got a cluster of information out there like that. They've also got a thing explaining how to transfer someone to the suicide crisis hotline. So maybe if you're on a phone somewhere or something like that, because I do phone calls all day. I'm not sure if anyone else like out there does it, but maybe you don't have the veteran on the phone call. You can explain to them how to contact the crisis hotline as well, just as the Coaching Into Care helps you convince them to go to care. There's a fact sheet explaining how to either get a person to the crisis hotline or transfer the call to the hotline. Can you say the name again? Coaching Into Care. I've never heard that program. Thank you for sharing that. I don't know if it's on VA.gov, but thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Also, for your issue was about housing. If you have housing or emergent resources in your community, you can pick up the telephone and dial 211. 211 has a, it's a national number that has the resources from your particular state and area. So when I dial 211, I live up in New Hampshire, I can get the resources available to me right there. But if I was visiting someone else in another state, I can pick up the dial 211 and it would have resources there also. Everything from housing to heating oil. If someone runs out of heating oil in the middle of the night, the resources are endless as they have. That ain't true. The number is true, but not. Okay, so last thing, I'm going to be quiet, so I'm going to ask you in the car. I have a business card. Sorry, but let me give you my email. I'll give you my email. Yes, because if I get the email, I can strain those and give them to my house courier if she can do some things. Okay, so here's my email. It's very easy. If you want it. It's comradcelianrad, comrad, like the hotel chain, which I'm not related, we shall work for. So it's comrad.washington, comrad.washington at va.gov. That's pretty easy, right? You email me or tell me how we met, where we met, what you named, and give me a little time because I'm going to come back one day and I'll take care of you. So thank you. One last question. It appears that the coaching into care is under va's website. There you go. So va.gov, I told you it's a one-stop shop. It's actually, it's actually www.immisenmary, I-R-E-C-C dot va.gov. Okay, okay. And I'm curious to know if you can get to that through the video. I'm sure you can somehow. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to wrap up the seminar. I appreciate your participation. Sorry for that. It wasn't Commander, it was the President of the CNA. You wanted me to come down there and make my presence and talk to everybody. I've been talking to you all this while. You know, all I got out of the deal was out of breath. But the point being is, if you didn't get any of this information, we've already been told that this will be on YouTube tomorrow. Go back and review it and you can pull all that information down. You've got me as a point of contact. I've already given you my number. Please text me. Let me know who you are. I'm trusting you. I'm trusting all of you with my number. But also, I want to reiterate, the subject matter experts that stood before you today to give you the list of programs doesn't make us a subject matter expert. It gives us resources. So as chaplains, I don't expect you to know it all. I don't know it all. But I know people who do know it all and I go to them and they help me. So don't feel like because you have chaplain in front of the name that somehow you've got to be the know-all be-all. It doesn't work that way. You can pull on one another's resources, come together, call me. And if I don't know where to get you, then we'll get someone who can get you where you need to go. And again, I appreciate everything that you guys do for our membership. I want to recognize Janet one more time and Comrade Washington. Thank you so much. Thank you for your participation. We'll see you next year.