Yes, thank you very much.
The challenges we experienced during this pandemic around access to mental health supports really relate to the pivot that organizations were able to make to serve people on a virtual platform.
From our perspective, we were able to make that move very quickly because we are an independent organization. What we have seen, however, is that the Canadian Armed Forces have a lot of restrictions around connectivity on a virtual platform. Early on in the pandemic, there were some huge challenges in terms of members accessing mental health supports. I would say that the situation has improved over the course of the pandemic.
I think that one of the major trends we have seen and continue to experience is an increase in interpersonal violence in the home relating to the situation of isolation, and the extra stress and pressure that could be financial, and certainly has been emotional and psychological, during this pandemic.
The Canadian Armed Forces have responded to that in terms of increased resources around interpersonal violence. We are finding that our caseloads have become quite heavy.
This is something that we do experience all the time, but we've certainly experienced a spike during the pandemic.