Inside the 2026 Statewide Symposium

June 11, 2026

Inside the 2026 Statewide Symposium | April 15 & 16, 2026

Most people experience only a small part of the support available to Arizona’s service members, veterans, and their families.

A veteran may know the organization that helped them find housing.
A spouse may know the program that helped them navigate employment.
A service member may remember the community partner who helped during a time of transition.

What is often unseen is the larger network working behind the scenes. For the past sixteen years, the Statewide Symposium in Support of Service Members, Veterans & Their Families has provided an opportunity for that network to come into view.

For two days, on April 15 and 16, 2026, military leaders, state agencies, healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, educators, employers, tribal partners, community volunteers, and veteran-serving professionals gather in one place. Each arrives with a different perspective, expertise, and role to play. Together, they represent something larger than any single organization could achieve alone: an ecosystem of support dedicated to strengthening the lives of Arizona’s service members, veterans, and their families.

An Ecosystem of Support

The challenges facing service members, veterans, and their families rarely fit neatly into a single category.

Employment affects financial stability.
Financial stability affects housing.
Housing affects health and well-being.
Family relationships influence resilience, connection, and recovery.

What may appear to be a single challenge is often connected to many others. This reality is reflected in the structure of the Statewide Symposium itself.

Across two days, participants explore topics that encompass the entire spectrum of the social determinants of health. While each session focused on a specific subject, a larger theme emerged throughout the event: none of this work happens in isolation. No single organization solves these challenges alone. Meaningful progress depends on many organizations working together, each contributing its expertise while remaining connected to the larger system.

Learning From Loss to Strengthen Prevention

Across Arizona, that question has become an increasingly important part of the work happening through the Veteran Suicide Mortality Review Team (VSMRT). Month after month, professionals from different disciplines come together to review cases, examine missed opportunities, and ask difficult but necessary questions about what prevention efforts might look like earlier, upstream, and closer to everyday life.

The purpose of this work is not simply retrospective analysis. It is about learning from loss, recognizing patterns, and translating insight into action while there is still time to make a difference for someone else.

As a group, we continue testing new approaches to reach veterans who might otherwise remain disconnected. Recently, the team uncovered that in about half of the cases reviewed, there was known marijuana use. So, we asked, “Where are these veterans?” and we began reaching out to licensed marijuana dispensaries. If veterans are already in these spaces, we wondered whether we could work collaboratively to create a way for dispensaries to also serve as pathways to information, connection, and support. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Dispensaries expressed a strong desire to be part of outreach to veterans and to expand pathways to connection.

Seeing the Connections

One of the most valuable aspects of the Symposium is the opportunity to see how the pieces fit together. A discussion about housing quickly becomes a conversation about employment, transportation, health care, and community support.

A session focused on suicide prevention naturally expands into discussions about connectedness, family support, access to services, and upstream prevention. Conversations about employment lead to discussions about education, military transition, and long-term financial stability.

The Statewide Symposium creates space for those connections to become visible.

Stronger Together

Supporting service members, veterans, and their families belongs to all of us and is constantly evolving. The Statewide Symposium has been a steady midyear checkpoint where relationships are built, ideas are exchanged, and lessons learned are shared. New partnerships are formed. Existing collaborations grow stronger. Innovative ideas move from discussion to action.

Most importantly, participants leave with a renewed understanding that they are part of something larger than their own organization or program. They are part of an ecosystem of support that spans Arizona and connects hundreds of partners through a shared commitment to supporting service members, veterans, and their families.

Each year at the Statewide Symposium, Arizona’s ecosystem of support becomes more visible, more connected, and stronger together.