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Findings to the Frontline is a monthly educational series that shares recent research findings, emerging practices, and future directions in Veteran suicide prevention research and clinical practice.

Building Firearm Retail Partnerships to Prevent Veteran Suicide

Lessons from The Armory Project

Gala True, PhD and Claire Houstma, PhD

Firearms are involved in nearly three-quarters of Veteran suicide deaths nationally — and even higher in some states. The Armory Project (TAP) addresses this crisis by building a network of community partners, including firearm retailers, who help normalize conversations about secure firearm storage and provide voluntary out-of-home storage for Veterans and other firearm owners in need.

This presentation addresses three interconnected challenges in making such partnerships work:

• How to recruit firearm retailers who are willing to engage on mental health and suicide prevention
• How to equip those partners with training, tools, and infrastructure to normalize conversations about mental health and offer voluntary, out-of-home firearm storage to individuals in need
• How to maintain the quality and integrity of those partnerships over time

The presenters will also share outcomes and impacts from their work. TAP's training and support model has produced a replicable blueprint that other states can use to create measurable increases in firearm retailer staff knowledge about suicide prevention and confidence to engage in conversations about secure storage.

Attendees will come away with concrete strategies and lessons learned that can inform efforts to build similar community suicide prevention partnerships.

TMS REGISTRATION

Follow the button link to the course in TMS (ID: 131022145), choose "Instructor-Led," then choose "Register."

You must pre-register if you wish to receive CE credits. Any after course, registration requests will be verified with Teams attendance roster and given a one-time courtesy registration.

Accreditations: ACCME, ACCME-NP, ACHE, ANCC, APA, ASWB, JAIPCE, NBCC

Credit/hours: 1.0 Hours

PRESENTER INFORMATION

Gala True, PhD Gala True, PhD, is an Investigator with the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) and the Richard Culbertson and Susan Leary Endowed Professor of Community and Population Medicine at Louisiana State University School of Medicine. She is Co-Director of The Armory Project, an initiative that partners with firearm retailers to promote secure firearm storage and provide voluntary out-of-home storage. Her current work in suicide prevention is funded by Face the Fight, VA Health Systems Research, Office of Rural Health, and Office of Suicide Prevention. She engages Veterans and their families, as well as community partners including firearm retailers and instructors, to raise awareness about secure firearm storage to prevent suicide.

Claire Houtsma, PhD Dr. Claire Houtsma is a Clinician Investigator and Suicide Prevention Coordinator at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System. She serves as the Co-Director of The Armory Project, a program that partners with firearm retailers to promote secure in-home and provide temporary out-of-home firearm storage. Dr. Houtsma’s research is focused on firearm suicide prevention among Veterans. In particular, she is passionate about using community-engaged research approaches to develop interventions that can reach firearm owning Veterans before a suicidal crisis emerges.

This CyberSeminar Series is brought to you by a partnership between the Veterans Health Administration Institute for Learning, Education and Development (VHA ILEAD) and VHA’s Suicide Prevention Learning Community. 

The Learning Community represents an ongoing collaboration among multiple Suicide Prevention entities within VA including the Office of Suicide Prevention, VA Office of Research and Development Suicide Prevention Actively Managed Portfolio (SP AMP), VISN 2 Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention (CoE), Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), and Suicide Prevention Research Impact NeTwork (SPRINT). 

The Office of Suicide Prevention is responsible for Suicide Prevention operations and supports both the CoE and Rocky Mountain MIRECC, who research Veteran suicide prevention and aid OSP with implementation and evaluation of new clinical programing. The SP AMP is the primary funder of Suicide Prevention research in VA while SPRINT serves as VA’s suicide prevention research core that helps connect clinicians and investigators with both ORD and OSP.

Please forward to others who might be interested in this learning opportunity.