Veterans Affairs committee  I'll say thank you very much for allowing us to come here to speak as well. One of the things with Veterans Affairs and with our program is that we've been working to get the members into our program, and the case managers become enablers. They become enablers in a most powerfu

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. When people are being medically released, especially for mental health conditions, it is because they're dealing with trauma. They're already dealing with something. They were in a profession where they were above reproach. When you are in the military, you are tr

Veterans Affairs committee  Typically we operate in a grassroots format. We work with members talking to other members, and it seems to work the best. Most veterans and most members releasing don't trust the system—I'm sure that may come as a shock—but they do trust each other, so we try to keep that grassr

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a couple of things. We have what's called a calling list. When we start our program, we do a fan-out list, as you would do in a typical conventional military unit. You would have a fan-out list of everybody's name and number so that you can contact each other. We do t

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely, yes. There's no script for trauma. Trauma is something that happens in the body, and there's no unit of measure that you can use. It doesn't matter if you're a combat soldier or a cook or a clerk. It doesn't matter. Trauma occurs. With the veterans transition progr

Veterans Affairs committee  One thing we're doing to enable them to speak up about this is that we're training women clinicians. When we run a program, we're running a men's program and we're running a women's program. Initially there is a lot of push-back from women veterans. They say, “We're used to bei

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think they're not able to; I think in our approach we provide an ability to. We provide an all-women clinical team and an all-women group that provides an open window and an opportunity for them to actually explore those things that they perhaps wouldn't otherwise.

Veterans Affairs committee  We teach soldiers how to listen and speak all over again. It's something that probably even civilians could learn. When we use it with veterans, of course, they have their own culture and their own way of speaking. They're also dedicated to learning how to get things done, so th

Veterans Affairs committee  I have gone out to New Brunswick—I think it was last year—and we did speak to Veterans Affairs at the two offices there, one in Moncton and one in Saint John. It was very well received. We did have a couple of members go on to a program from that. Right now I am actually lookin

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks. My name is Doug Allen. I'm a retired infantry soldier, and now I have a master's degree in social work. My relationship with the Veterans Transition Network is that I graduated from the program myself. Like many veterans, I decided to make sure I was advocating for every