Training By Location

LivingWorks Suicide Prevention within Military and Veterans Services

Suicide among military and veteran communities around the world remains far too high. 

As the world leader in suicide prevention skills training, LivingWorks trains those currently serving as well as veterans, their families and their support providers so that everyone can be part of building suicide safer communities.

LivingWorks & Military Around the World

Since the 1990s, LivingWorks has trained hundreds of thousands of military personnel and veterans across the globe.

Global

United States

Australia

“What suicide first aid training does is it gets us used to having the conversation. It’s exactly like weapons training – repetition, repetition, repetition – the more sessions we do or skills that we learn, the more comfortable we are and the easier it is to have those discussions when we think we ourselves or someone around us is not ok.”

Brendan | serviceman in the Australian Army for 7 years

Case Study

In 2009, following the LivingWorks ASIST training, the US Army reported the confidence of the participants willing to help a person with thoughts of suicide increased from 38% to 90%.

38%
90%
Before Training
After Training

LivingWorks Results in Military-Veteran Organizations

LivingWorks training at Hurlburt Field yielding remarkable drop in suicides.

01

Hurlburt Field sits in an idyllic spot along Florida’s Emerald Coast. Air Force Special Operations Command has 10,000 personnel at the installation including active duty and civilians. Given the nature of special operations and scaled-up activity since 9/11, the installation was seeing a higher-than-average number of suicides with approximately five to nine suicides a year, including civilian employees.

02

The leadership knew it had a serious problem to address so the base collaborated with LivingWorks to receive training in suicide prevention. The base trainers then combined one of LivingWorks training programs, LivingWorks safeTALK, with their in-processing at Hurlburt and included spouses. LivingWorks safeTALK teaches trainees to recognise when someone is thinking about suicide and connect that person to support. The support team was trained in LivingWorks ASIST, another LivingWorks program that teaches people to provide suicide interventions and keep others safe.

03

The remarkably effective and innovative in-processing combination known as Commando Ready equips all new airmen with the half-day LivingWorks safeTALK training and the drop in suicides on the base is impressive. The Air Force has a calculation based on their suicide prevention program that allows for predictability based on five-year data sets.

04

“Based on five years of data and the number that we had, rates per thousand and so forth, it came to 260 something days. We went almost 650 before we actually hit a point where we had another suicide,” said Dexter Mitchell, a retired service member who now acts as a community support coordinator at the installation. He is trained in both LivingWorks safeTALK and LivingWorks ASIST.

05

Based on the buzz this reduction in suicides is creating, Hurlburt is getting calls from bases around the country—from Missouri to California and states in between—who want to duplicate. The simplicity and accessibility of widespread LivingWorks safeTALK training with a smaller group on base LivingWorks ASIST-trained creates a community-wide safety network among the airmen and their families.

Courses for Military and Veterans

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