President signs executive order addressing veteran suicide

President Trump signed the order titled “National Initiative to Empower Veterans and End Veterans Suicide,” which focuses on improving the quality of life for America’s veterans and combatting veteran suicide, March 5 at the White House. The executive order establishes a task force to combat veteran suicide.

“To every veteran, I want you to know that you have an entire nation of more than 300 million people behind you,” Trump said. “You will never be forgotten. We are with you all the way.”

The executive order mandates the establishment of the Veteran Wellness, Empowerment and Suicide Prevention Task Force and includes Secretaries of Defense, Health and Human Services, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, and Education and Housing and Urban Development.

“As the largest integrated health care provider in the nation and a leader in developing innovative mental health and suicide prevention strategies, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is uniquely positioned to co-chair this effort with the White House,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Veterans suicide is a national public health issue that affects communities everywhere, and this executive order is a national call to action.”

The task force will within one year:

• Develop a comprehensive national public health roadmap outlining the specific strategies needed to lower effectively the rate of veteran suicide, with a focus on community engagement.

• Design and propose to Congress a program for making grants to local communities, which will increase their ability to collaborate with each other, integrate service delivery and coordinate resources to veterans.

• Develop a national research strategy to improve the coordination, monitoring, benchmarking and execution of research in the field of veteran suicide prevention.

“We are committed to saving veteran lives, but just as there is no single cause of suicide, no single organization can end veteran suicide alone,” Wilkie said. “We must work side by side with our partners at all levels of government — and in the private sector — to provide our veterans with the mental health and suicide prevention services they need. This executive order advances the public health approach to suicide prevention further by identifying key integrations and connections across the federal government and communities that can be used to save veterans’ lives.”