My experience in trying to come back into the military as a civilian to help in the area of mental health is that I have been told outright, including by lots of people in the social work department at Base Petawawa—by the base surgeon, and by Calian, which does the contract hiring—that there are only certain professionals they recognize as being able to provide the care that is needed. Those professionals are clinical psychologists with a PhD, or a social worker. The social worker, I presume, would have to have a masters-level degree.
That's a 1950s view of who do you go to if you need help, and who do you go to if your marriage is falling apart and you want to get some marriage counselling? Well, you go to a social worker or maybe you go to a psychologist.
What I want you to understand is that there are other mental health professionals out there who are probably better trained and have the training and the depth of experience to be able to work in almost any field of mental health. So that's what I was trying to get at.
I've been very frustrated. SISIP paid for my vocational retraining, and actually paid out quite a bit of money for me to do this two-year course. I had the understanding that I would be welcome to come back into the civil service, and I haven't been able to do that. I haven't been able to make any headway anywhere.
I watch with a little bit of frustration as my colleagues in the States are recognized and are hired to do the work with OSI and PTSD that I'm very capable of doing here, and which I do in my civilian practice.