Recap: 2024 Virginia & Washington, D.C. Advocacy Days

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's National Capital Area Chapter (AFSP-NCAC) thanks everyone who joined us for our 2024 Virginia State Capitol and Washington, D.C. DC Advocacy Days. Dozens of amazing volunteers from Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia shared their stories with legislators and advocated for numerous public policy initiatives to prevent suicide and improve access to mental health care, with the support of AFSP’s Public Policy Office.

In Virginia, we advocated to the Virginia General Assembly to:

• Support HB 498/SB 225, which would require schools to notify parents about secure storage of firearms
• Support HB 37, which would establish a loan repayment program for mental health
• professionals
• Support HB 224, which would require training of public school personnel on mental health awareness

In Washington, D.C., we advocated to the D.C. Council Members to:

• Provide funding for the construction of an architectural barrier in D.C. to prevent suicide, after unanimously voting to fund the design of the barrier last year
• Support DC B25-0460, which would collect data on the deaths of transgender and gender-diverse individuals to improve targeted suicide prevention efforts in the LGBTQ+ community
• Support efforts to prevent firearm suicide, including establishing a gun safe and gun lock distribution program in D.C., as well as add a suicide prevention module to the required firearms safety training course

The awareness and recognition we can bring to this cause through our public policy efforts cannot be accomplished without the support of our dedicated volunteers! Please take action today on these and other critical AFSP public policy priorities by going to the AFSP Public Policy Action Center. In just 2 minutes, you can tell your legislators to support efforts to prevent suicide and increase access to mental health care.

I also want to invite and encourage everyone to join us and Become an Advocate and/or join the AFSP-NCAC Public Policy Committee by completing the AFSP-NCAC Volunteer Application. 

More resources can be found online at afsp.org/Advocacy. We look forward to continuing our engagement with volunteers interested in the public policy space and, hopefully, having you join our advocacy efforts!

Questions? Contact [email protected]

Thank you for helping us save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.