[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 155 (Tuesday, September 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6213-S6215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SUICIDE PREVENTION

  Mr. DONNELLY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to bring attention 
to suicide prevention, an issue of tremendous importance to families 
and communities across Indiana and our country.
  The Senate will be introducing a resolution very soon recognizing 
suicide as a serious public health problem and expressing support for 
designation of September as National Suicide Prevention Month.
  Every year, we lose nearly 45,000 Americans to suicide. It is the 
10th leading cause of death in this country and second leading cause 
for those ages 15 to 34. Think about that for a moment: 45,000 lives 
every year, 123 lives every day, 1 life every 12 minutes.
  The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention champions the message: 
``Be The Voice . . . Stop Suicide.''
  Whether we are Senators or family or friends or coworkers or even 
strangers, we can all play a role in helping to prevent suicide. We all 
must ``be the voice.''
  So what is our voice?
  Formally recognizing Suicide Prevention Month is a start, and I am 
proud to have cosponsored that resolution. Yet it can't just be about a 
day or a week or a month on which we pause to reflect. This is a 
heartbreaking challenge for our communities, and we must be working 
year-round and across the aisle--there are no Democrats or Republicans 
in this--to find the solutions that provide Americans with the help 
they need to get through their most trying times.
  Over the past several years, Congress has found a number of 
bipartisan solutions to help address this tragic problem, but our work 
is far from done. There are still 45,000 Americans every year and their 
families and their friends who need our help. They need our action.
  As I started my time in the Senate, I made it a focus to find 
bipartisan approaches to suicide prevention. In Indiana, suicide claims 
over 1,000 lives every year. That is one Hoosier lost every 8 hours. In 
2013, my fellow Hoosier Jeff Sexton reached out to me to share the 
tragic story of his son Jake. Specialist Jacob Sexton, an Indiana 
National Guardsman, tragically took his own life in 2009 while on leave 
from a deployment to Afghanistan.
  His story is far too familiar for Active, Guard, and Reserve 
servicemembers and for veterans as well. Despite representing less than 
10 percent of the population, these Americans comprise almost 20 
percent of the suicides. Their communities lose over 7,000 members 
every year as they struggle with the stresses of the military service 
that we as a nation and as a Congress ask of them.
  So the question is, What can we do to help them and to prevent these 
tragedies?
  Hoping to answer that question, the first bill I introduced in the 
Senate focused on suicide prevention in the military and in our veteran 
communities. Introduced in 2013 and signed into law in the 2014 
National Defense Authorization Act, my Jacob Sexton Military Suicide 
Prevention Act addressed a critical gap in mental healthcare for our 
troops. All too often, many of our

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servicemembers would go years without having any mental health 
assessment, without having a medical professional ask: How are you 
doing? How are you feeling? If you are feeling a little off or a little 
unsure, we have all the means you need to get help.
  Congress worked together to pass that bill into law, and now we have 
ensured that every servicemember, Active, Guard, and Reserve alike, 
receives an annual mental health assessment--a professional look to 
make sure the member isn't fighting a battle he or she can't win on his 
or her own. That is why I was pleased to hear from every service 
Secretary and Chief last fall that annual mental health assessments 
have been 100 percent implemented throughout the services.
  Even with an avenue for help, though, many servicemembers were 
cautious about reaching out for assistance. They feared the stigma 
could hurt them professionally or personally. They feared repercussions 
to their deployability, their promotions, or their security clearances. 
We also made sure to include privacy protections as a part of the 
Sexton act. It is critically important that these brave men and women 
who come forward can get the support they need without suffering 
professionally for just seeking help.
  In building upon the Sexton act, my Servicemember and Veteran Mental 
Health Care Package, which was signed into law as part of the national 
defense bill in 2015, is a three-part, bipartisan effort to ensure 
servicemembers and vets have access to quality mental healthcare, 
whether they seek it through providers in their communities, the 
Department of Defense, or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
  First, the Military and Veterans Mental Health Provider Assessment 
Act guarantees that the Department of Defense's primary care and mental 
health providers are trained to recognize signs of suicide risk and 
other mental healthcare best practices.
  Next, the Community Provider Readiness Recognition Act developed a 
new designation for community healthcare providers that demonstrates a 
strong knowledge of military culture and mental treatments that are 
focused on servicemembers and veterans, specifically pertaining to 
mental health.
  Finally, the Frontline Mental Health Provider Training Act helped the 
Department of Defense establish a pilot program to expand the 
availability of physician assistants to meet the increasing need for 
mental healthcare evaluations and services for servicemembers and 
military families.
  I am proud to have helped pass each of these efforts, and I believe 
they are some of the Senate's most important achievements in the past 5 
years as the demand for military mental health services has never been 
greater. It is extremely important that we leverage all of our assets 
in support of our veterans, servicemembers, and military families 
through legislation like the Sexton act and the Care Package. It is 
critical that our support for mental health extends beyond Active, 
Guard, and Reserve duty and that we continue to honor this commitment 
to our veterans.

  Another piece of bipartisan legislation that I was proud to work on 
was the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, which 
was signed into law in 2015. This law is key to getting timely and 
effective mental healthcare to prevent suicide in our veteran 
communities. The bill's namesake, Clay Hunt, was a decorated veteran of 
Iraq and Afghanistan who tragically took his own life after he 
struggled with PTSD and depression. The Clay Hunt SAV Act requires 
annual third-party evaluations of VA mental health and suicide 
prevention programs. It creates a centralized website that provides 
information on VA mental health services, and it requires the VA to 
collaborate on suicide prevention efforts with nonprofit mental health 
organizations.
  As our country still faces a rate of more than 20 veterans who take 
their lives every day, we must continue to find opportunities like 
these to help prevent veteran suicide and improve the mental healthcare 
services that are available to our heroes.
  It shouldn't come as a surprise that the law enforcement officers who 
keep our communities safe often face some of the same stresses that 
affect our servicemembers and our veterans. It is becoming increasingly 
common for them to repeatedly experience challenging and even horrific 
situations on the job. Protecting the psychological health and well-
being of those who serve our communities is a critically important 
issue.
  With fellow Hoosier Senator Todd Young, I was proud to introduce the 
Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act in early April 2017, to 
help get it through the Senate unanimously in May of 2017, and signed 
into law by President Trump this past January. This bill was inspired, 
in part, by Lebanon, IN, Police Officer Taylor Nielsen, who, in 2016, 
was called to a horrific crime scene. With the gruesome images of the 
scene etched in her mind, Taylor began to suffer from post-traumatic 
stress disorder and, at one point, sought to take her own life. 
Fortunately, her fellow officers recognized her situation, sought help 
for her, and saved her life before it was too late.
  The Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act helps our law 
enforcement officers get access to the mental healthcare they need as 
they keep our communities safe every day. The law authorizes grants to 
initiate peer-mentoring pilot programs. It directs the Departments of 
Justice and Health and Human Services to develop resources for mental 
health providers based on the specific mental health challenges that 
are faced by law enforcement, and it studies the effectiveness of 
crisis hotlines and annual mental health checks. It also directs the 
Departments of Defense and Justice and Veterans Affairs to confer about 
existing DOD and VA mental health practices and services that could be 
adopted by our law enforcement agencies.
  In working together with my colleagues, I am proud of these 
successes, but mental health issues and suicide impact every part of 
our Nation; they don't discriminate. We must look for ways to ensure 
that our workplaces, our schools, and our rural communities have the 
mental health care and treatment resources they need.
  One critical resource is the national suicide hotline. By calling 1-
800-273-8255, every American can access free and confidential emotional 
support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a wonderful service, and 
we are working to make it even better.
  The bipartisan National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act, which I 
introduced with my friend Senator Hatch, was signed into law a month 
ago. It will increase the effectiveness of the current suicide 
prevention lifeline system and the Veterans Crisis Line by requiring 
the Federal Communications Commission to study the system and to make 
recommendations on how we can improve it. One of these improvements is 
in seeing whether we can include a three-digit hotline number that 
would better connect folks to crucial crisis resources.
  Now, in the time I have been on the Senate floor today--just in this 
short time--we have likely lost another American life to suicide. At 
the current rate, in 12 more minutes, we will, heartbreakingly, lose 
another. As a parent, this is so heartbreaking and so tragic that we 
have to do whatever we can to prevent these tragedies--123 Americans 
every day, 45,000 every year--of people who can make our lives and our 
country so much brighter and so much better every day. It doesn't have 
to be that way--that they will be gone.
  It is incumbent on all of us to harness the sobering reminder of this 
National Suicide Prevention Month and ensure that every American knows 
there is hope and that support is just a call or a conversation away.
  There are people and there are resources that are available to help 
you get through any challenges that you have. You are loved, and you 
are cared about. We want to make sure you have everything you need to 
get through whatever difficult time you may be facing.
  I am proud of these efforts--proud that we have put aside any party 
politics to address this issue that affects all of us. Our job is not 
done though. We have to exhaust every avenue to provide all Americans 
the support they need to prevent suicide. Let's tackle this program 
together. Let's ``be the voice.''
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S6215]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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