The White House recently announced that psychology’s Barbara Van Dahlen will serve as the executive director of the PREVENTS Presidential Task Force to End Veteran Suicide. Barbara is the founder of Give an Hour where Randy Phelps, who had worked for APA for a quarter of a century, will succeed her as the organization’s CEO. This extraordinary effort has already provided more than 300,000 hours of free mental and behavioral health care, valued at over $30 million, through volunteer mental health professionals, for active duty military personnel, veterans and their families. These critical efforts have now been expanded to address the needs of those impacted by our nation’s unprecedented series of natural and man-made disasters, and most recently they have also opened their network of volunteer mental health professionals to support the more than 12,000 immigrant and refugee children — and their families — who are being affected by the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.
Executive Order 13861, the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide, will be led by an inter-agency Cabinet-level Task Force. The express goal is to create a roadmap that will reduce suicide by empowering veterans to pursue an improved quality of life. Research and collaboration across the public and private sectors are high priorities. Barbara: “The Roadmap will utilize a public health approach that will change the way we talk about, think about and address suicide broadly in our society in order to end veteran and military suicide specifically. It’s clear that we can no longer focus exclusively on trying to identify those at risk or those in need — we need a broad-based effort that changes the culture around mental health so that those in need are better able to seek and receive care — long before they reach the point of hopelessness that leads to suicide.” Her office has released a Request for Information to help guide the National Research Strategy.
Psychology’s state associations should be well placed to provide significant input on effective ways to increase knowledge about factors influencing suicidal behaviors and how to prevent suicide, inform the development of a robust and forward-looking research agenda; coordinate relevant research efforts across the nation; and especially important, measure progress on these efforts. Without question, to effectively address this national tragedy, psychology must collectively develop a holistic understanding of the underlying factors that determine the overall health and well-being of our nation’s veterans. We would further suggest that Barbara’s appointment provides our state associations with an exciting opportunity to develop collaborative interprofessional relationships with our other mental health colleagues, such as psychiatric mental health nursing, social work and clinical pharmacy.
Arlo Guthrie, at Ron Levant’s Opening Ceremony, proclaimed: “They may think it’s a movement, and that’s what it is.” The 2020 presidential election is just around the corner, and those colleagues passionately interested in the prescriptive authority (RxP) agenda will appreciate the national political pundits’ focus upon the importance of their candidates doing well throughout the Midwest. Long-time RxP proponent, even since his graduate student days, and former Pennsylvania Psychological Association President Steve Ragusea: “Well, heck, Illinois (2014), Iowa (2016); Nebraska and Ohio (legislation pending) … that almost defines the midwest. The critical east coast electoral states of Pennsylvania and Florida are also actively engaged in pursuing RxP legislation.” Not to be forgotten, the first RxP legislative success, thanks to Mike Murphy, was in the state of Indiana (1993). “You’ve got me rockin’ and a-rollin’” (The Beach Boys). Aloha!
