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SAVE — a Peer Outreach Team Whose Job Is Preventing Veteran Suicide
Statewide Advocacy for Veterans Empowerment is a peer-to-peer mobile outreach team in the Executive Office of Veterans Services, specialising in suicide prevention, mental health and other urgent needs. It comes to the veteran, works with the National Guard, and reaches people with less-than-honorable discharges.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
Statewide Advocacy for Veterans Empowerment is a peer-to-peer mobile outreach team in the Executive Office of Veterans Services, specialising in suicide prevention, mental health and other urgent needs. It comes to the veteran, works with the National Guard, and reaches people with less-than-honorable discharges.
What it's worth: Peer outreach, advocacy and connection to mental health care — no cost stated
- The office describes SAVE as an outreach programme connecting veterans with peers to access benefits and services supporting mental health. It publishes no fee, and none is described.
- The value is access rather than money: the team is mobile and regional, and its purpose is to reach people who are not already engaged with services.
- The team works in collaboration with the Massachusetts National Guard, and the Guard’s resources and Family Readiness Program are described as available to all service members and their families regardless of branch.
Who is entitled to it
- The team works with veterans and service members directly.
- Guard resources and the Family Readiness Program are available to service members and their families through the same team.
- You live in Massachusetts, which is where the team operates.
- Your home is in Massachusetts.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
- 1Call the SAVE outreach main line on 617-210-5743, or the toll-free number 1-888-844-2838. There is no form and no eligibility application standing in the way.
- 2If the situation is immediate, call 988 and press 1 for the Veterans Crisis Line first, then come back to SAVE for the follow-through.
- 3Use the office nearest you. The team runs from Boston, from the Chelsea Veterans Home and from the Holyoke Veterans Home, and its outreach coordinators work regionally.
- 4Say plainly what the problem is. The team’s described remit runs across suicide prevention, mental health, substance use, housing, eviction and long-term care placement, so a housing crisis is as much in scope as a clinical one.
- 5Do not screen yourself out on a bad discharge. The team’s own description of its work includes helping veterans with less-than-honorable discharges or criminal backgrounds access benefits or public housing.
- 6If you are a family member, call on the veteran’s behalf. This is an outreach team by design and being contacted by someone else is a normal way for it to start.
- 7Ask about Battlemind and QPR training if you run a workplace, a post or a community group. The team delivers both.
- Form
- None — call the team
- File with
- SAVE Outreach, Executive Office of Veterans Services
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThis is not a clinic and it is not a waiting list. It is an outreach team that travels, and its own account of its work includes veterans who have been shut out of federal benefits by their discharge.
Worth knowingThe Guard connection matters for reservists and Guard families who assume state veteran services are not for them. The team works with the Massachusetts National Guard and the Guard’s family programme is described as open regardless of branch.
Known gapThe office publishes no eligibility criteria, no cost and no service-era test for this programme. That is consistent with an outreach service, but it means anyone told they do not qualify should ask on what basis.
Sources
- authority · published policyExecutive Office of Veterans Services — Statewide Advocacy for Veterans Empowerment (SAVE) Program: an outreach programme that connects veterans with peers to help them access the right benefits and services to support their overall mental health; its primary mission is to prevent suicide and mental health distress by identifying issues veterans encounter when returning from service and proactively providing access to benefits and services; the team works closely and in collaboration with the Massachusetts National Guard, whose resources and Family Readiness Program are available to all service members and their families regardless of branch; offices in Boston, at the Chelsea Veterans Home and at the Holyoke Veterans Home
- operating · published policyExecutive Office of Veterans Services — Statewide Advocacy for Veterans Empowerment Outreach Team: a peer to peer mobile outreach team specialising in suicide prevention, mental health and other urgent needs across the state; SAVE Outreach main line 617-210-5743 and the Veterans Crisis Line at 988 then press 1; coordinators work with veterans who are homeless or at risk of losing housing, from pending evictions through Housing Court to long-term care placement, and with veterans with less-than-honorable discharges or criminal backgrounds seeking benefits or public housing; clinical advisers support the team
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.