By Jessica Soule, LCSW
Funded by the VA Office of Suicide Prevention, Safeguard Veterans is a one-year pilot research program designed to unite community partners—including 13 key collaborators operating across six target cities—to strengthen the existing web of care surrounding our veterans. The Consortium for Defense Psychology (CDP) plays a vital role in this effort by equipping community providers with evidence-based suicide prevention and trauma-focused training and creating a tailored referral tool that aims to ensure veterans receive top-tier care, no matter where they seek PTSD treatment.
A core pillar of CDP’s work focuses on direct clinical education. To date, Safeguard has reached over 400 attendees through free, virtual workshops centered on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (CBT-SP), Problem Solving Therapy for Suicide Prevention (PST-SP), and Safety Planning.
CDP’s PTSD training curriculum features an innovative twist: equipping clinicians to deliver Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) in both traditional outpatient therapy formats and massed (condensed) schedules. While PE and CPT are highly effective treatments, traditional weekly therapy sometimes poses significant hurdles—ranging from practical scheduling conflicts to the anticipatory anxiety of repeatedly confronting trauma over several months. The best treatments only work if clients can stick with them; by offering condensed delivery options, clinicians can dismantle these barriers and make life-changing trauma care far more accessible and manageable.
To complement virtual training offerings, CDP is delivering immersive in-person trainings across select pilot locations. Following a successful two-day CBT-SP workshop in Fayetteville, NC, and a three-day Prolonged Exposure (PE) workshop in San Antonio, TX, there is still time to sign up for two final in-person trainings:
- Problem Solving Therapy for Suicide Prevention: Las Vegas, NV, 20-21 October 2026
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Hampton, VA, 27-29 October 2026
Beyond provider education, CDP is finalizing an online referral tool designed for veterans, their families and caregivers, and community clinicians. Grounded in VA standards of care and refined through target user focus groups, the tool helps users navigate PTSD treatment programs outside the VA system. This ensures veterans who seek care in their local communities receive high-quality, culturally responsive treatment. As Safeguard’s training calendar culminates at the end of October, visit safeguardveterans.net to learn more or register for remaining trainings.
The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of War.