Tucker named suicide subject matter expert in 2.7 million dollar military suicide prevention grant

A team of military leaders and researchers including LSU associate professor of psychology Raymond Tucker (clinical) received a 3-year 2.7 million dollar grant from congressional appropriation funds to implement a series of community-based suicide prevention initiatives for active duty military serving in remote areas and overseas. The research study will implement a community psychology-based approach and will be conducted in four phases. Phase I (Formation) will build effective working relationships with military command and leaders and integrate select members into a suicide prevention task force or working group. Phase II (Data collection) will initiate preliminary data collection and analysis based on working group recommendations. Phase III (Pilot Purpose-Driven Leader Intervention) will train military leaders in purpose-driven leadership activities and test their effect on suicide within their units. Phase IV (Knowledge products) will consolidate findings and draft the prototype purpose-driven leadership suicide prevention manual as well as publications and dissemination of collected data. This project is a collaboration with researchers and leaders at University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and LSU.