Colorado is\u00a0home to more than 369,000 veterans<\/a>, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2022 (the most recent data available),\u00a0178 of them took their lives<\/a> \u2014 a rate that is significantly higher than the national veteran suicide rate and the overall rate for the state and the country. In 2023,\u00a0Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment data<\/a>\u00a0shows that veterans accounted for 21% of the state\u2019s suicides by firearm, the most common method.<\/p>\n To combat those devastating statistics, Colorado in 2021\u00a0established a pilot program<\/a>\u00a0to reduce the veteran suicide rate. Next Chapter is the result of that legislation.<\/p>\n Three days after his intake interview with the Next Chapter team, Miller had a bed at UCHealth\u2019s Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation in Aurora. He stayed for two months. Miller was then released to a sober living community in the Springs and was required to report to the veterans\u2019 court every week for two years.<\/p>\n His Next Chapter mentors were there every time \u2014 literally. In each instance that Miller had a court appearance, one or more mentors kept him company, Miller says. They even helped him find an apartment once he was in a position to live independently.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes that\u2019s the biggest challenge \u2014 for a veteran who\u2019s struggling, anybody who\u2019s struggling \u2014 is to know who to call,\u201d says Bruce Cowan, director of the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs. \u201cWe sent these young men and women away to do a job, and if they come back broken, in need of help, we as a society owe them that debt.\u201d<\/p>\n With no family around \u2014 Miller\u2019s sons had been sent by the courts to live with his brother in Texas \u2014 the Next Chapter team became Miller\u2019s sole support system.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely didn\u2019t open up to the idea of therapy and someone and asking for help \u2014 that\u2019s just not what\u2019s bred into us in the military, in the Marine Corps especially,\u201d Miller said, squinting beneath a bluebird sky. \u201cHonestly\u2026 if those people wouldn\u2019t have been there, I don\u2019t know how successful I would have been.\u201d<\/p>\n A testing ground for veteran mental health<\/p>\n El Paso County is a vast rectangular swath in the state\u2019s center, encompassing Colorado Springs and\u00a0numerous military installations<\/a>. The county\u2019s 2,130 square miles holds the largest veteran population in Colorado, accounting for a quarter of the state\u2019s total military population.<\/p>\n As of 2020, it also claimed one of the highest veteran suicide rates in the country:\u00a0one veteran was dying by suicide per week<\/a>\u00a0in the El Paso area. Legislators viewed it as an ideal testing ground for a suicide prevention initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cVeterans are dealing with many multifaceted challenges\u2026 . Part of the challenge is connecting veterans with the programs that exist \u2014 making sure they know how to maximize and use those programs,\u201d said Leroy Garcia, a Marine Corps veteran who was Colorado State Senate president while the effort was moving through the legislature. \u201cAll of these processes need to be made a little bit easier to meet the veteran where they\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n The Veterans Administration provides mental health care and resources at eight clinics across Colorado, but the nationwide system has long been plagued by excessive wait times and bureaucracy. In mid-September, the wait time for a new patient seeking mental health services at the VA\u2019s three Colorado Springs-area clinics was a\u00a0minimum of 32 days<\/a>. (Veterans are\u00a0assigned to one of eight priority groups<\/a>, which can impact the speed with which they can connect with care.)<\/p>\n Going through Next Chapter, the same people can obtain an appointment with a mental health provider\u00a0within nine days<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some very specific challenges with military veterans that we just don\u2019t always see in the civilian community,\u201d said Damian McCabe, UCHealth director of military affairs and director of behavioral health for the system\u2019s southern Colorado region. \u201cWe\u2019re asking people to navigate complex systems at the worst time in their life, at the highest point of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than send a veteran to find a provider or sit on hold on the phone \u2014 increasing the chances they\u2019ll grow frustrated or never connect for care \u2014 Next Chapter does warm handoffs and has providers contact the veterans and schedule appointments based on their availability.<\/p>\n Next Chapter serves as a single point of contact that a veteran or family member can reach out to (in person or virtually) to connect with a host of aid above and beyond mental health services, from emergency food assistance and job skills development to education and family support programs. Next Chapter has partnerships with providers like the\u00a0Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0NAMI Colorado Springs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Next Chapter is also staffed entirely by veterans, which helps clients feel seen and understood. All associated providers receive military cultural competency training via UCHealth.<\/p>\n Leah Jackson, a behavioral health clinical therapist with Next Chapter and an Army veteran, has had other veterans tell her that they felt like \u201ca piece of trash\u201d after meeting with an unfamiliar therapist. Her own experiences, she says, made her feel like she wasn\u2019t being heard.<\/p>\n \u201cThis model has really taken those barriers down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The initiative set out to connect with 700 veterans. It\u2019s served 1,232 thus far, with 86% seeking behavioral health support. A\u00a0June 2025 report on the program\u2019s efficacy<\/a>\u00a0by the Evaluation Center at the University of Colorado Denver found that more than 80% of participants reported a drop in their thoughts of self-harm and suicide. Of those who reported prior suicide attempts, the majority had decreased those attempts, and 77% of respondents \u201creported having never successfully received care before Next Chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n McCabe had initially hoped simply to keep the suicide attempt rate from increasing. Yet, unexpectedly, there was a 5% drop in the number of veterans\u2019 lives lost to suicide in the program\u2019s first year. And although El Paso County saw an increase in the veteran suicide rate between 2022 and 2023 (newer data won\u2019t be available until later this year), there have been no known suicide deaths among Next Chapter clients since it came online in June 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cThe success of the pilot program is incredibly encouraging, showing that those kinds of population-specific programs are effective, and more broadly, that wraparound service models work,\u201d said Allie Eliot, chief communications officer for the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration, or BHA. \u201cVeterans and their families have very unique behavioral health needs, and so this program and others like it are really critical to fostering and uplifting programs that are tailored to those unique needs.\u201d<\/p>\n More help for veterans on the way<\/p>\n In May, the state legislature\u00a0expanded the pilot program<\/a>, with funding from a\u00a0new state tax on firearms sellers<\/a>\u00a0approved by voters in November 2024. According to the BHA, nonprofits can apply for the extended grant program once funding becomes available. (Proposition KK was primarily designed to support crime victims<\/a>, with $30 million of incoming sales tax supporting victim services. After reaching that number, up to $5 million will be put toward veterans\u2019 mental health services.)<\/p>\n While the wait for the funding continues, Next Chapter continues to operate, though it can\u2019t currently cover care costs as its initial pilot budget has been emptied. That\u2019s part of why the effort included training other service providers and nonprofits\u2014to begin increasing the number of veteran-competent care providers across the state.<\/p>\n The broadening of the Next Chapter model has always been the goal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognized then that if we could point to a county and say, \u2018This has been successful, we\u2019ve helped move the dial,\u2019 we could build from there,\u201d Garcia, the former Senate president, said. \u201cThe veterans have the drive and the grit. We just have to pull it back out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Garcia sees that growth as particularly critical right now, when war and active duty are far from U.S. soil.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means you still have vets out there dealing with substance abuse, dealing with homelessness,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re still out there\u2014they might just be a little more in the shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller has stepped out from those shadows and regained solid footing with help from Next Chapter and others. He has been sober for nearly four years, received his certification as a peer recovery coach and works as the housing director for\u00a0Purple Mountain Recovery<\/a>, a nonprofit in Colorado Springs that supports LGBTQIA+ individuals as they recover from mental health and addiction-related issues.<\/p>\n He was also recently granted full custody of his kids.<\/p>\n Next Chapter \u201cwas a very integral part of getting me where I\u2019m at today,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember all the help I got, and I remember how hopeless everything felt.\u201d<\/p>\n The biggest takeaway for him? \u201cThere\u2019s no shame in asking for help.\u201d<\/p>\n Freelance journalist Daliah Singer wrote this story for\u00a0Collective Colorado, a publication of\u00a0The Colorado Trust. It first appeared at\u00a0collective.coloradotrust.org<\/a>\u00a0on Oct. 31, 2025, and can be read in Spanish at\u00a0collective.coloradotrust.org\/es<\/a>. The Colorado Trust is a philanthropic foundation that works on health equity issues statewide and previously funded a reporting position at The Colorado Sun.<\/p>\n Type of Story: News Service<\/p>\n Produced externally by an organization we trust to adhere to high journalistic standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sitting outside on a warm July day in a white polo, his black ballcap backward, Heath Miller recounts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[21902,14442,138,1060,140,139,21903,21904,15899,15900,21905,21906,15901,21907,1913,5018],"class_list":["post-34615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-colorado-department-of-public-health-and-environment","tag-colorado-springs","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-county","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-lgbtqia","tag-proposition-kk","tag-suicide","tag-suicide-prevention","tag-suicide-rates","tag-the-colorado-trust","tag-uchealth","tag-university-of-colorado-denver","tag-veterans","tag-veterans-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-story-3.jpg\")
Damian McCabe, the UCHealth director of military affairs and director of behavioral health for southern Colorado, sits outside Next Chapter\u2019s office on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo.\u00a0(Parker Seibold, Special to The Colorado Trust)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-story-4.jpg\")
Leah Jackson, a UCHealth behavioral health clinical therapist with Next Chapter and an Army veteran, stands outside Next Chapter\u2019s office on Oct. 9.\u00a0(Parker Seibold, Special to The Colorado Trust)<\/p>\n![\"Friends](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-story-6.jpg\")
Heath Miller, front right, and his son Brecken, front left, are joined by friends and family as they say grace before dinner on Oct. 9.\u00a0(Parker Seibold, Special to The Colorado Trust)<\/p>\n