DVEN & Mission Daybreak CEO Contributes Insight On Veteran Suicide Prevention Solutions

El Segundo, CA based DVEN is pleased to announce that their CEO, Robert Hess, was recently selected to help the Veterans’ Administration come up with innovative solutions that aim to reduce veteran suicides. Veterans often find themselves in need of professional mental health care and therapy upon returning home, and if they fail to get this help, they are more likely than non-veterans to commit suicide. People like Robert Hess (who is himself a veteran), along with organizations like the Veterans Administration, strive to provide these vulnerable individuals with the resources they need. Their objective is to prevent the conditions that lead to so many veteran suicides every year. Visit https://dven.org/dven-ceo-selected-at-mission-daybreak-proposal-reviewer/ for more information on Mission Daybreak and Robert Hess’ appointment.

Hess served in Vietnam and Europe as well as at the Pentagon and the Department of State. He has long been a staunch advocate for disabled veteran awareness and suicide prevention. “Suicide is a serious public health problem that affects communities everywhere,” says DVEN. “In 2019, more than 45,000 American adults died from suicide, including 6,261 US Veterans. Veterans make up just 7% of the US population but account for almost 14% of annual suicides. DVEN is pleased to announce that Founder and CEO Robert Hess, himself an Army veteran and PTSD survivor, has been selected to be a proposal reviewer for Mission Daybreak innovation submissions. The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched a significant effort to reduce veteran suicides. Mission Daybreak is a $20 million grand challenge to develop innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of Veterans. The grand challenge, designed and produced by Luminary Labs through a contract with Capital Consulting Corporation, is part of the VA’s 10-year strategy to prevent Veteran suicide through a comprehensive, public health approach.”

DVEN believes that proposed solutions should seek to reduce the frequency of suicides by addressing one or more challenges in certain focus areas. Phase 1 of Mission Daybreak will award $8.5 million in prizes, with 30 finalists each receiving over $200,000 before advancing to phase two where they will gain exclusive access to various services. Ten more teams will receive a promise award of $100,000. Phase 2 will be an eight week accelerator which will provide resources that will help participants prepare for their final submissions. It will award a total of $11.5 million in prizes. Read more about Mission Daybreak online at https://www.missiondaybreak.net/.

Mission Daybreak began on May 25th in 2022, calling on innovators from various fields to come up with suicide prevention solutions that meet the needs of veterans from all walks of life. This initiative builds on the Veterans Association’s long history of advancing health innovation to create a support system for innovators and their solutions. The challenge offers a large sum of money to innovators in addition to various resources like data, research, mentorship, educational webinars and partnership opportunities. The VA is the largest integrated healthcare system in the country, so it is able to leverage expertise from private-sector, nonprofit and government collaborators to help support Mission Daybreak’s mission.

Hess says about the Disabled Veteran Empowerment Network and why he started it, “I created the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project 501 c3 non-profit charity in 2006 to help veterans with prostate cancer measure their risk and find their cancers while they still are treatable. We expanded our mission to include support for all cancers in 2016, and the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project became The Cancer Journeys Foundation, also a 501 c3 non-profit charity, EIN 81-1880936. In 2018, we came to understand how many veterans are dealing with cancer, and of the huge number of cancer survivors who are dealing with PTSD like so many of our veterans. In early 2019, we created the DVEN program to provide more focus on our disabled veteran population. Thank you for visiting DVEN and for your support of our disabled veteran community.”

For more information on the organization and Robert Hess’ vision, visit https://dven.org/mission-vision/. The organization’s representatives can be reached by phone or email as well.