Damian McCabe, director of behavioral health for UCHealth in southern Colorado, told the Colorado Springs City Council during its Aug. 25 work session that a UCHealth‑led pilot program called Next Chapter enrolled about 1,250 veterans and family members and that “no one has taken their own life since enrollment.”

McCabe said the program was designed to reduce stigma and financial barriers to care by linking existing community “nodes of service” — including Mount Carmel, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Silver Key and a peer‑support network — to UCHealth’s clinical infrastructure. The program offered a centralized portal for same‑day or scheduled access and, during the three‑year pilot, focused on crisis intervention, referrals and measurable outcomes.

McCabe said the state gave the initiative three explicit goals: create low‑barrier access to care for veterans and families in the region, remove financial barriers to care, and enroll at least 700 people with the aim of preventing self‑harm and suicide. He told council the pilot exceeded that enrollment target, signing up about 1,250 people, and that 86.3% of enrollees sought behavioral‑health services, with post‑traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety the top diagnoses.

A CU Denver evaluation team had access to program data, McCabe said, and performed objective reviews of clinical outcomes. McCabe summarized the evaluation finding as treatment‑effect improvements in anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms for a sample of about 230 clinical reviews. He said the program had helped place veterans into residential rehabilitation when needed and that some care costs were covered during the pilot but that, after funding changes, the program “cannot underwrite care” or pay co‑pays or full residential costs in its current form.

McCabe and his colleagues also described policy and funding work. He said advocates helped secure passage of House Bill 1121, a state measure to redirect some sales tax from guns and ammunition toward expanding mental‑health access for military members and veterans; McCabe cited a state allocation of $5,000,000 to the effort, and said Colorado Springs would likely receive a portion of that funding.

Council members asked about experimental treatments. In response to Councilman Hincham’s question on psilocybin, McCabe said UCHealth is not providing psilocybin now and would consider any new therapy only after FDA approval and internal clinical review. He said veterans using off‑label or self‑administered psychoactive substances should seek clinical evaluation and that the program would not refuse care to someone reporting prior self‑treatment.

Councilors praised the program’s reported results and asked about outreach to active‑duty installations; McCabe said Next Chapter has worked with military courts and with local Space Force and Air Force installations to provide on‑site outreach and enrollments.

No formal council action or funding vote occurred during the presentation. McCabe closed by asking council to support data‑driven policy decisions and to continue advocacy and partnership to sustain and replicate the model.

Ending: UCHealth presented Next Chapter as a community‑based, evidence‑examined pilot that aimed to lower barriers to behavioral‑health care for veterans and families; council members commended the work and asked follow‑up questions about treatment modalities, funding and military outreach. No city appropriation or binding action was proposed at the meeting.