Bartlesville Radio: The area’s best source for news, weather and sports!

Over 40 community members gather at Tri County Tech in Bartlesville for a Together With Veterans (TWV) meeting to learn about community-based suicide prevention strategies.

Pictured right: Tri County Tech's Tara Gotwalt (left) and Veteran Connection Organization Executive Director Sharon Reese-McGlory (right) lead the conversation during a Together with Veterans Community Meeting in Bartlesville on Thursday morning.

Veterans Connection Organization (VCO) Executive Assistant Janie Palmer, who helped organize the event, says they learned about TWV, and discussed the community's strengths and needs on Thursday morning. Palmer says they came together to create a TWV Action Plan as well.

The information gathered will be provided to TWV, the Veterans Administration, and the Bartlesville Veterans Suicide Prevention Coalition. The meeting was hosted by VCO.

The goal was to build a community team of Veterans, family members and community partners for the following purposes:

----------

1. Assess local needs, resources, strengths and readiness for implementing a suicide prevention program.
2. Expand public awareness and education about Veteran's suicide and available resources.
3. Promote Veterans connectedness with community activities and services.
4. Provide suicide prevention training
5. Strengthen communication and coordination among Veteran-serving programs.
6. Enhance suicide prevention capacity of local primary care and behavioral health provided.

----------

Palmer says they planned on having 60 community members at the meeting, but only 41 were able to attend. She says weather played a factor in attendance as ice conditions made it more difficult for people living in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City area.

People were invited to the community meeting by a steering committee. Palmer says each member of the committee asked five to seven people that they know in the community to discuss and share what they know about suicide prevention. She says the meeting was about getting community partners to tell them what they know.

Data in regards to veteran suicide from 2018 was presented during the meeting. That data is as follows:

----------

• The suicide rate was 1.5 times higher among Veterans than non-Veteran adults.
• The suicide rate was 2.6 times higher among women Veterans than non-women Veterans.
• Male Veterans ages 18-34 experience the highest suicide rate.
• Male Veterans ages 55-74 experience the highest number of suicides.
• 68-percent of Veteran suicides are firearm related (followed by suffocation at 17-percent, and poisoning at 9.5-percent).
• Rural Veterans have a 20-percent increased risk of death by suicide after controlling for access to care, demographic factors and diagnoses.

----------

According to information provided by VCO, there are 3,610 Veterans in Washington County (two are homeless). In Nowata County, there are 512 Veterans. 3,369 Veterans reside in Osage County, and two of them are homeless. Oklahoma as a whole is home to 303,205 Veterans, 313 homeless Veterans, and 96,143 Veterans with disabilities.

Community leaders/partners and Veterans alike from all parts of northeast Oklahoma were in attendance. Palmer says she believes everyone learned a lot from one another as everyone shared their unique perspective and input on support for Veterans and suicide prevention. She says the topics were seen differently from person-to-person, but having that open conversation was grounds for better understanding among different people in the area.

The raw information gathered in the meeting will be reviewed. Palmer says next steps will be provided once the data is evaluated. She says an open public meeting may be held in the future once VCO receives feedback.

Veterans Connection Organization is located at Tri County Tech's Strategy Center at 6105 SE Nowata Road in Bartlesville. VCO provides services at no cost for helping veterans, service members and their families.

To learn more about VCO, you can visit their website here. You can call VCO at 405.323.6139 or 918.376.0022.

If you are a Veteran that is currently experiencing a mental health crisis, you can call the Veterans Crisis Line at 1.800.273.8255.