VA Suicide Hot Line

VA Taking Life-Saving Campaign to Streets 

WASHINGTON (Oct. 19. 2010)- This week, nearly 1,200 life-saving

advertisements will go up on city buses, bus shelters, rail and subway

stations across the Nation displaying a message of hope for those who

have served their country and may be facing an emotional crisis. The

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is advertising its Suicide

Prevention Hotline through Jan. 9, 2011.

"I know of one Veteran who saw these signs on a bus shelter, called the

hotline, and came to VA for help that same day," said VA Secretary Eric

K. Shinseki. "That Veteran had been walking out to the desert to take

his own life. There are thousands of other Veterans like him who are

still with us today as a direct result of the hotline. It's important

that we get the word out to everyone who put their lives on the line in

defense of this Nation."

Since its inception in July 2007, VA's Suicide Prevention Hotline,

1-800-273-TALK (8255), has saved more than 10,000 Veterans and provided

counseling for more than 180,000 Veterans and their loved ones at home

and overseas. The hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week

by trained mental health professionals prepared to deal with immediate

crises. The hotline also offers an anonymous online chat feature

available at www.suicidepreventionhotline.org

<http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org> . (Look for the chat feature

in the upper right hand box.) While implemented for Veterans, any person

who calls the hotline and needs help will receive it.

VA has marketed the hotline through mass transit campaigns since summer

of 2008, increasing the number of calls and lives saved with each city

the campaign has reached. VA is partnering with Blue Line Media

(www.BlueLineMedia.com) for the campaign, a transit advertising

<http://www.bluelinemedia.com/transit-advertising-media_4.html>  company

that specializes in helping business and government tell their stories

through transit advertising media, such as buses, bus shelters, benches,

subways, trains, airports, billboards and more.  

VA has also promoted awareness of the hotline through national public

service announcements featuring actor Gary Sinise and TV personality

Deborah Norville. The transit advertisements and both PSAs are available

for download via You Tube and at

www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention. 

---------------- "And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades." -- Robert M. Gates, 1996