I think members' spouses and children should be involved in the process. The Canadian Armed Forces quickly seems to forget that a member is also someone's father, husband and son. Spouses, children and even parents of members should be involved. What's more, some sort of tool should be developed to validate the symptoms the member is experiencing. When a person gets back from a mission, sometimes they are fine. They have a few weeks off and go about their lives.
The statistics show that it can take up to 12 months for a symptom of post-traumatic stress to appear, but by then, no one is doing any follow-up. A mechanism should be in place to check whether the person experienced any changes after six months or a year. At the very least, someone should contact the person's family to check. It's easy for the member to say that everything is fine, that they have returned to duty, that they are going to the gym and so forth. Sometimes, though, that isn't the truth; that isn't the reality.
The children of members need more support as well. When you are farther away from a large base, you don't have access to much. It's tricky. You can't go to the same therapist as your husband. You don't have access to couples therapy either. I have asked for it repeatedly, but we've never been able to get any couples counselling, except for one session. Obviously, that isn't enough.