Experts on suicide, particularly among veterans, led a wide-ranging conversation about risk factors and effective interventions at an event hosted by UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. Professor Mark S. Kaplan shared insights from his extensive research of at-risk populations with the gathering of students and social workers. “What many vulnerable young veterans returning from places like Afghanistan and Iraq needed more than anything else was not a psychiatrist but a social worker, somebody who could help them with that transition into civilian life, somebody who could help them with their family and their community,” he said. “It was really a challenge of reintegration that mattered most; it wasn’t a psychiatric problem.” The Nov. 6, 2018, panel included Susan Pindack, a social worker with the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System; Sam Coleman, a lecturer at Cal State Long Beach and coordinator of the Veterans for Peace PTSD Working Group; and Carolyn Levitan, director of the crisis line at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services’ Suicide Prevention Center. The panel’s broad experience led to an expansive discussion that touched on Civil War fighters who took their own lives, firearm use among female soldiers, the role of pain management in preventing suicide and the impact of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” Students from the Mental Health Caucus at UCLA, one of several event co-sponsors, led a question-and-answer session after the panel presentations. — Mary Braswell

View a Flickr album from the event here.