 Welcome!
As we approach the end of 2023, we extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone reading this newsletter. You are a vital part of the suicide prevention community. Your engagement and support help us raise awareness, foster understanding, and implement meaningful solutions to support Veterans.
Keep reading for recent updates and opportunities from our team. If you have feedback for us or suggestions for how we can improve this newsletter, please contact us as RockyMountainMIRECC@va.gov.
Thank you for being an essential part of our mission. Here’s to a new year filled with hope and positive change.
The Rocky Mountain MIRECC Team
Transgender and Gender Diverse Veteran Engagement Group
Help us understand suicide risk and prevention among transgender and gender diverse Veterans by joining our Veteran Engagement Group. In doing so, you can apply your lived experience, knowledge, and perspective to help inform research to prevent suicide among transgender and gender diverse Veterans.
We are seeking 5-6 transgender and gender diverse Veterans to:
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Attend an initial virtual orientation (2 hours)
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Attend monthly meetings virtually with our research team (1 hour per meeting) for approximately 1 year
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Occasionally engage in emails outside of meetings
Compensation will be provided for participating in meetings.
Suicide risk management is a necessity of mental health practice. Therapeutic risk management (TRM) is patient-centered, supportive of the treatment process, and maintains the therapeutic alliance. A crucial element of TRM is risk stratification and documentation. To help you apply TRM in your clinical practice, the Rocky Mountain MIRECC is offering durable, laminated Risk Stratification Tables.
The Risk Stratification Table will:
- Help clinicians make determinations regarding suicide risk levels with respect to severity and temporality
- Aid in clinical decision making
 The Rocky Mountain MIRECC is now accepting applications for its 2024 Diversity Summer Research Internship! This paid 10-week program brings students from historically excluded groups to the Rocky Mountain MIRECC to work with experts in Veteran mental health care and suicide prevention.
Interns work with an assigned mentor to develop and explore a research question over the course of the summer and participate in structured trainings with Center faculty to learn skills such as how to create visual abstracts, write a curriculum vitae, and apply to graduate school.
Preference will be given to applications submitted on or before February 1, 2024.
Learn more and apply.
 Rocky Mountain MIRECC researchers are part of a team that recently published in Military Medicine about the First Annual PACT Act Research Symposium for Veteran Health. The 2-day Symposium brought together nearly 200 participants and 25 researchers to focus on military exposures and existing data/programs, respiratory health, and mental health. The new article provides a summary of the Symposium and some of the collective thoughts from the researchers who participated.
If you couldn’t attend the original presentations, slides and recorded talks are also now available on the Symposium website. Following the Symposium a number of researchers and organizations have formed the Colorado PACT Act Collaborative (CoPAC), to advance research efforts in this important field.
These are a few of our most popular visual abstracts of the year! The purpose of visual abstracts is to make complex research more accessible and easier to understand.
Click the image to view a larger version of each visual on Twitter/X and be sure to visit the accompanying publication for full methods, results and discussion.
Can we strengthen military-to-civilian transition programs and services by improving support for psychosocial challenges?
Read the publication here.
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