Press Releases

Washington, DC--- Today, Congressman Paul Hodes’ legislation to help improve suicide prevention for Guard and Reservist members was signed into law by President Obama. The measure was included in the 2010 Defense Authorization bill to train key service providers and community members to provide an integrated community response to reduce risk and promote healing in the aftermath of a suicide. The program is modeled after a successful New Hampshire program.

"Our guardsmen and women and reservists deserve all the resources necessary to prevent these terrible tragedies," said Congressman Hodes. "We have already witnessed the successes of this program in New Hampshire. Now we are spreading the benefits of this program to all fifty states, and National Guard members and Reservists across the country will have the support they need as we continue the fight to prevent suicides."

In addition to developing suicide prevention programs, effective post-vention is an essential component to community response. The amendment recognizes that post-vention training should be incorporated into any comprehensive suicide prevention effort.

The focus of the training is to create an integrated, coordinated community response that:

The Connect/Frameworks Postvention protocols were developed through coordination and facilitation of statewide, interdisciplinary working groups in New Hampshire that included a variety of stakeholders and experts. Training activities and materials based on these protocols were developed by Connect/Frameworks staff in consultation with experts in training and best practices in suicide prevention, and then tested and evaluated prior to implementation.