As Veterans Day 2024 approaches, a program at Rutgers committed to saving veterans lives is stronger thanks to a generous grant.
Vets4Warriors, administered within the Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care National Call Center, is a one-of-a-kind peer support network. It allows veterans and their families, as well as active duty, National Guard, and reserve service members to call, email, or chat online to receive confidential peer support from fellow veteran counselors “before challenges turn into crises.” The $1 million grant it received from Face the Fight—announced in September in advance of Veterans Suicide Awareness and Prevention Day—will expand and scale its capabilities to provide more services in locations with higher rates of suicide and limited resources.
“This generous grant will enhance the critical work we began with Vets4Warriors in 2011,” says Mark Graham, a retired Army Major General who is director of the Vets4Warriors program. “Our efforts in these first 13 years have helped us achieve more than 900,000 contacts with the brave men and women who have served our country. This support from Face the Fight will help us support many more veterans and their families in the years to come.”
Vets4Warriors operates independently of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. military, allowing veterans to feel confident that everything they share remains confidential.
Face the Fight—launched in 2023 by founding partners USAA, Reach Resilience, and the Humana Foundation—has made strides by bringing together a like-minded coalition of organizations to help reduce veteran suicide through a multi-pronged approach that includes charitable giving, public education, and awareness.
“As we evaluated organizations to support, the Vets4Warriors program at Rutgers in New Brunswick stood out as a highly effective organization in alignment with our goals of preventing veteran suicides,” says Katherine “Katy” Dondanville, Psy.D., ABPP, Chief Scientific Advisor to Face the Fight. “Vets4Warrior’s established track record and its connection with an excellent state university health care system make it an invaluable resource to all veterans.
Frank A. Ghinassi, president and CEO of Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care and SVP for Behavioral Health and Addiction Services at RWJBarnabas Health, says supporting veterans is a priority for the university. “At Rutgers, serving the common good is one of our core values. Supporting veterans through Vets4Warriors is an effort that accomplishes this goal by reaching men and women across New Jersey and beyond. This is an effort we proudly support.”
For more about the grant from Face the Fight, read the press release. To connect with Vets4Warriors, visit its website; the toll free number for veterans to call for confidential peer support is 855-838-8255.
