The first suicide prevention center in the United States was opened in Los Angeles in 1958 with funding from the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1966, the Center for Studies of Suicide Prevention (later the Suicide Research Unit) was established at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Later on, in 1970, the NIMH pushed in Phoenix the discussion about the status of suicide prevention, presented relevant findings about suicide rate and identified the future directions and priorities of the topic. However, it wasn't until mid-1990s when suicide started being the central issue of the political-social agenda of the United States. Survivors from suicide began to mobilize encouraging the development of a national strategy for suicide prevention. Finally, two Congressional Resolutions—S. Res. 84 and H. Res. 212 of the 105th Congress—recognized suicide as a national problem and suicide prevention as a national priority. As recommended in the U.N. guidelines, these groups set out to establish a public and private partnership that would be responsible for promoting suicide prevention in the United States. This innovative public-private partnership jointly sponsored a national consensus conference on suicide prevention in Reno, Nevada, which developed a list of 81 recommendations   One of the first pieces of legislation to directly address Veterans' Suicide Prevention was the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (JOVSPA) of 2007, supporting the creation of a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence of suicide among veterans. Named for a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom who died by suicide in 2005, the act directed the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to implement a comprehensive suicide prevention program for veterans. Components include staff education, mental health assessments as part of overall health assessments, a suicide prevention coordinator at each VA medical facility, research efforts, 24-hour mental health care, a toll-free crisis line, and outreach to and education for veterans and their families. In the summer of 2009, VA added a one-to-one “chat service” for veterans who prefer to reach out for assistance using the Internet.In 2010, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention was created and, in 2012, the National Strategy was revised. With Obama’s administration suicide prevention strategies for veterans expanded and a goal was formed to make the process of finding and obtaining mental health resources easier for veterans, work to retain and recruit mental health professionals, and make the government programs more accountable for the people they serve.