Aldebol Q&A: younger veteran suicide disparities and outreach

With that, Council Member Aldebar.

Thank you for testifying today.

Thank you, chairs, for having this hearing.

You mentioned in your testimony today that there's a particularly concerning disparities among younger veterans.

Do you have data on

couple of things.

What the breakdown is of the age ranges, the demographics, and

possible reasons why those disparities exist.

And are you working on tailoring both outreach and services for that particular group of veterans?

Thank you for that question.

So what we've seen on the national level, and we can definitely share this with you, I'll read some of the top lines as we understand it, is that in veteran suicide rate is twice the rate among non-veteran U.S.

Adults, as well as the age group of 18 to 34, which is typically our post-9-11 veterans, experience the highest suicide rate at 47.9 deaths per 100,000 people.

These are the numbers that we are also actively tracking in collaboration with Intro 291 that was passed with DOHMH, as well as with our federal partners at the VA.

And I'm going to pass over to Commissioner.

And to your point about younger veterans, that is something that as an agency, as I mentioned before, we continue hosting roundtables to ensure

that, again, that if there's messaging going to be targeted to younger veterans, what is the best approach?

I also want to indicate that I've been working very closely as well with the DYCD commissioner when it comes to have just conversations on what is the best approach when dealing, for an example, is a SYEP program, right?

I did, when I did meet with the DYCD commissioner, I did mention that oftentimes when younger veterans are transitioning out of the military, they're either 23 or about 23 years old, young veterans.

They serve four years.

But what happens when that young veteran transition?

back to civilian world, what oftentimes happen is that military skills, your MOS per se, your job, right, that you have in the military,

when you transition back into the civilian world, oftentimes, like, civilians don't understand what your MOS was or the transferable skills that you have.

So we are trying to have those further discussions on what is the best way when those younger veterans as well transition back in the civilian world, how can their transferable skills of their MOS job per se

say, the civilians can understand, like, hey, this veteran, this young veteran has a specific skill, because oftentimes their skills are not transferable.

When civilian employers look at their job, their background, they say, oh, well, they don't have a college degree, they haven't been in the civilian world, they don't have no training, not knowing that they do have the skills to lead, that they have the skills to manage.

So I think I just want to elaborate on that, because that's going to be another discussion in the future that we're going to be having.

How do we best support those young veterans that also are returning back to ensure that they obtain employment?

Because oftentimes employment is one of the reasons why they go into substance abuse or even worse, commit suicide.