BY ANDREW HEISERMAN
Staff Writer

ROCHELLE – A speaker from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will be giving a presentation on suicide prevention open to the public at the Rochelle VFW post 3878 Monday.
Suicide among veterans is rising problem and for that reason, Vicki Clark, suicide prevention coordinator for the Rockford VA primary care clinic, travels around southern Madison, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois educating people on the tell-tale signs of suicide and how to extend help to someone contemplating taking their own life.
Clark starts each one of her presentations with facts about suicide among veterans.
“Twenty veterans a day die by suicide and out of those 20, 14 of them are not attached to the VA [Veterans Affairs] and will never come across any of our signage or information,” said Clark.

Some of the suicides could possibly have been prevented if the person had a support system or someone to talk too.
The program presented by Clark at different locations such as schools, churches, unions and VFWs is called SAVE. The SAVE program discusses the different facts and myths related to suicide, the different resources available for people who need help, and identifying people who are at risk.
The title of the presentation SAVE is an acronym, so each letter stands for a different part of the process.
“S stands for the signs of suicidal thinking, A stands for ask the most important question of all, V stands for validating the veteran’s experiences and E stands for encourage treatment and expedite care,” explained Clark.
The goal of this presentation is to educate people on how to react if faced with the situation and to get people more comfortable with talking about suicide since it is a very difficult subject to talk about.
Clark has seen good response from her presentations so far with quite a few people who have previously seen or heard about the presentations reaching out afterward asking if she will present in their area.
Bill Bumgarner, commander of the Rochelle VFW post, recently saw one of Clark’s presentations and afterward reached out for her to come and present at the Rochelle VFW.
“I went to the VFW post 9759 in Loves park for her presentation about a month ago and it seemed like she was very trained in what she does,” added Bumgarner.
The presentation will be held Monday, Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Rochelle VFW post. It is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.
Bumgarner hopes that by opening the session to the public that maybe a friend or family member of a struggling veteran will come out even if the veteran themselves doesn’t want to ask for help.
Many veterans need the help but will not go out of their way to seek it.
“I wanted to do that because sometimes veterans won’t ask for help because they are pretty bull headed, and I thought a family member has more contact with them than we do,” explained Bumgarner. “So, maybe they would have a better chance of talking them into getting help or getting the help for them.”
The Rochelle VFW would like everyone to know that they don’t have to be a veteran or family member of a veteran to attend the presentation. They encourage anyone who knows a veteran or just wants to learn more on preventing suicide to attend.