For the past few years, the Department of Missouri has staged suicide-prevention training during its Fall and Spring Conferences, as well as its department convention.
In the past few years, The American Legion Department of Missouri has provided suicide-prevention training during both its Fall and Spring Conferences, and its department convention. And momentum for the training has picked up as The American Legion has made its Be the One veteran suicide awareness program its top priority.
The department recently completed another round of training during its Fall Conference in Jefferson City, teaming with the Missouri Department of Mental Health’s Missouri Veterans Suicide Prevention Team to do so.
Department of Missouri Adjutant Lowry Finley-Jackson was able to attend the training for the first time and came away impressed.
“It was really good,” Finley-Jackson said of the training. “And at future conventions, instead of doing this as a stand-alone class, we’re going to do it in front of the entire body. We’re going to have (Missouri Department of Mental Health Veterans Services Director) Jon Sabala come out and do the training first thing in the morning on that Friday of the convention, so that anyone who is there will get the training.”
Participants in the training are taught to recognize the warning signs of suicide, as well how to offer help and get help for those who may be contemplating taking their own life. The training is open to the public, not just members of The American Legion.
But the training isn’t just available to those who attend any of the department’s three major meetings. “We offer (suicide-prevention) classes at each of our conferences and our convention,” Finley-Jackson. “And then the guys from the Department of Mental Health will go out to American Legion posts … and provide training there.”
Finley-Jackson also noted the Missouri American Legion and other veteran service organizations, state agencies and the Missouri National Guard have teamed with the Missouri Department of Mental Health on Buddy Check 22 Day. Legislation was passed in the state in August 2020 establishing the 22nd day of each month as "Buddy Check 22 Day" to promote education and awareness of the problems of suicide facing military personnel.
And Finley-Jackson said Sabala has begun incorporating the Legion’s Be the One program into his talking points during the training, “that the national American Legion is already on top of this with Be the One.” And she feels that Missouri Legionnaires have become even more engaged in being proactive in suicide prevention since Be the One was launched.
“They want to prevent any suicide they can, they really do,” she said. “We’ve had a few people within our department that have experienced it. They’re leading the charge to get this done.”
- Be the One