Thanks to Chaplain Collins and BG Bauerle for the lead. This is the next step in the VA’s efforts to fund Suicide Prevention programs.

The Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program kindly requests the distribution of the following announcement across your catchment community stakeholders and health care systems.

VA announces public virtual listening sessions to guide development and implementation of the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be holding two public virtual listening sessions to help inform VA’s development of the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program (SSG Fox SPGP) and its implementing regulations. The virtual sessions will occur on May 25 and May 26, 2021 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. eastern standard time. Virtual check-in will begin at 9:00 a.m. for registered speakers. Oral comments, testimonies, and/or technical remarks will be time limited based on the number of speakers (see notice for details).

Registration information is located in the Federal Register.

The SSG Fox SPGP, created pursuant to Section 201 of the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019, is a three-year community-based grant program that would provide financial assistance to eligible entities to provide or coordinate providing suicide prevention services to eligible Veterans and their families. On April 1, 2021, VA published a request for information in the Federal Register (86 FR 17268) seeking written comments from the public with an accompanying Press Release.  Listening sessions are an opportunity for interested persons to help inform VA’s development of the SSG Fox SPGP.

VA looks forward to hearing your thoughts on topics including:

• Establishing the criteria for selecting eligible entities that have submitted applications;
• Developing a framework for collecting and sharing information about eligible entities receiving grants;
• Developing the measures and metrics eligible entities receiving grants will use to determine the effectiveness of programming provided to improve mental health status, well-being and reduce suicide risk and deaths by suicide; and
• Developing a plan for the design and implementing the provision of grants, including criteria for awarding such grants, and on non-traditional and innovative approaches and treatment practices.

For more information about the SSG Fox SPGP please visit www.mentalhealth.va.gov/ssgfox-grants.

Registration information is located in the Federal Register.

https://www.federalregister.gov/