Wong Q&A: losing contact with veterans and suicide prevention
Wong asks about DVS policy when contact is lost with a veteran. He shares that a constituent veteran committed suicide last year. Orlando describes maintaining multiple communication channels and consistent follow-up, including connecting with community-based organizations and federal VA partners.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
My first question to Commissioner Model is, what if you lose contact with a veteran?
Nobody picks up and then, no, doesn't mean it's anything bad.
They might be traveling or visiting families from another state.
So what's your policy when you lost contact with a veteran?
I'm going to pass that question to my chief of staff, but as I mentioned, at DVS, we have different ways for individuals to reach out to us.
Again, we're going to be doing a lot of work.
whether social media, the website, intake process, walk-ins.
But now during my tenure, we are creating that aftermath component that Dine had mentioned, and I'll pass on this question to Nicole.
Thank you for the question, Council Member.
What we do here at DVS is ensure that we have more than one line of communication with the veteran.
So if we have their phone number, if we have their email address, text message, as well as any way that we can get in touch with them, consistent follow-up as well has proved to be super helpful.
I think in that question as well, there has been times where our team has connected the community-based organization that they have been connected to or work closely with our federal partners on the VA level.