Save The Sheepdog Foundation

Suicide Prevention for Veterans, Law Enforcement, Firefighters, and Emergency Medical Service personnel. The Save The Sheepdog Foundation was created by a group of military veterans and current/former first responders out of frustration. We all had grown tired of hearing, all too often, that another veteran, law enforcement officer, firefighter or EMS personnel had committed suicide. All of us had friends, or friends of friends, that had taken their own life. We decided to take action. We looked for an organization that was focused on solving this problem, for this group of people, whom we call Sheepdogs. We couldn’t find it. We found plenty of nonprofits and for-profit companies that were focused on “awareness” and well meaning organizations that had created “retreats” for folks that were suffering from PTSD, TBI, and other issues. We found research organizations, academic and otherwise, that were focusing on one subset of the Sheepdog community. But, we couldn’t find one single organization that was solely focused on funding research and providing therapy for the entire Sheepdog community. We believe that there is a common thread among veterans and first responders that leads to the epidemic level of suicides and suicide attempts. We are building a research and therapy center that will bring together professionals from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, with a common focus, that is finding real solutions to this epidemic. We will take theory to practice, not just fund research for the sake of adding to the body of knowledge of suicide prevention. We want to find existing tools, build new tools, and deploy them at scale. We know we won’t do this alone and are prepared to partner with other organizations, private or public, to meet the mission: stop sheepdog suicides. There are at too many Sheepdogs committing suicide each day in the United States. We want to make that number 0, but if we only save 1, then it is all worth it.