{"id":37863,"date":"2025-03-07T09:48:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T15:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=37863"},"modified":"2025-03-07T09:48:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T15:48:04","slug":"suicide-mortality-review-team-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=37863","title":{"rendered":"Suicide mortality review team proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Members of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony March 6 on a proposal to create a team that would gather and analyze data on veteran deaths by suicide in Nebraska.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_32948\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32948\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"32948\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=32948\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/SenDungan_inline.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"297,445\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;9&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Office of University Communicati&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS R5&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Nebraska Senator George C. Dungan III. District 26. November 14, 2022. Photo by Craig Chandler \/ University Communication.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1668445841&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;\\u00a9 2022, The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved.&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;115&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;160&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.008&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"SenDungan_inline\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. George Dungan&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. George Dungan&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/SenDungan_inline.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-32948\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/SenDungan_inline-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sen. George Dungan\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/SenDungan_inline-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/SenDungan_inline.jpg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32948\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. George Dungan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under LB414, introduced by Lincoln Sen. George Dungan, the review team would be housed within the state Department of Veterans\u2019 Affairs. Members would include representatives from the Nebraska Violent Death Reporting System, Nebraska Local Outreach to Suicide Loss Survivors, the state Department of Health and Human Services and appointed members from the fields of education, health care, law enforcement, mental health and social work.<\/p>\n<p>Dungan said he worked closely with the department to develop the bill in hopes of facilitating greater coordination and communication among entities that are working to better understand and prevent veteran suicide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The] team doesn\u2019t just gather data, but can utilize that data in real-word examples to actually try to reduce the harm to individuals,\u201d Dungan said.<\/p>\n<p>The team would have access to an array of data, including law enforcement reports, as well as employment, educational, forensic, medical and mental health treatment records. They also could interview next of kin who are willing to participate. The team would be required to:<br \/>\n\u2022 develop a suicide mortalities data collection system;<br \/>\n\u2022 develop protocols for suicide investigations;<br \/>\n\u2022 conduct an annual analysis of the incidences and causes of suicide in Nebraska;<br \/>\n\u2022 educate the public regarding suicide and the public\u2019s role in prevention; and<br \/>\n\u2022 study the adequacy of training and services to determine what can be done to decrease suicides.<\/p>\n<p>Testifying in favor of the proposal was Jenifer Acierno, legal counsel for the state Department of Veterans\u2019 Affairs. She said a suicide mortality review team would provide the department with valuable background information and context to better understand the issue of veteran suicide.<\/p>\n<p>The team also would facilitate cooperation among the disparate groups in Nebraska that are working on the issue of suicide prevention generally, Acierno said.<\/p>\n<p>No one testified in opposition to the measure and the committee took no immediate action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Members of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony March 6 on a proposal to create a team that would gather and analyze data on veteran deaths by suicide in Nebraska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-37863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-george-dungan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/LB414Dungan3-6-25a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37865,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37863\/revisions\/37865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}