Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health are collaborating with Charter Homes & Neighborhoods to launch Got Your 6 at Home, an initiative to better support veterans’ mental health and employment challenges in central Pennsylvania.
Recent figures indicate approximately 17 veterans die by suicide every day and overall, service members are five times more likely to suffer from depression than civilians. The Got Your 6 at Home initiative will work to provide employers and families of veterans with virtual training through Penn State Project ECHO and access to resources and tools that will enable them to better support veterans who are coping with mental health challenges.
Project ECHO will expand its virtual platforms to connect specialists with employers in an effort to provide them with resources to recruit, retain and support veteran employees. Experts from the College of Medicine and Penn State Health will also develop a series to support veteran family members and help them identify mental health warning signs.
To fund the initiative, Charter will support the program through proceeds generated from the sale of initiative-specific homes and vendor donations. Charter broke ground on a limited-edition Got Your 6 house in the Arcona neighborhood, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 11. When the home is sold, a portion of the profits will go directly to the program. This is the first Got Your 6 house that will be built and sold.
“Project ECHO is excited to partner with Charter to provide stakeholders with the resources they need to help veterans thrive,” said Dr. Aditya Joshi, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the College of Medicine who will lead the Project ECHO series. “By offering employers, families and veterans resources and training, our hope is that we can give critical mental health support to those who have served the country.”
If you are a veteran who needs immediate help or know a veteran in crisis, contact the Department of Veterans Affairs confidential crisis line at 1-800-273-8255 and press 1, text 838255 or chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.
To learn more about Got Your 6 at Home or to offer services or resources, visit GotYour6atHome.com.