Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is a two-part question.
We currently make the Road to Mental Readiness for families available through the military family resource centres to whomever members identify as their family. Recognizing that not everybody can access the physical centres where they are, we are, in fact, in the final stages of developing a comprehensive, online suite of training modules for families of Canadian Armed Forces members on a variety of topics related to how we can help both CAF members and their families manage the various demands of service. This will be available in both languages, and it will be openly available across Canada as well. There will be no password required, and the nice thing about that is that it will also be available to the families of Canadian first responders, many of whom have received the Road to Mental Readiness through some of the partnerships that have already been identified.
In terms of the second part of the question with regard to how we evaluate the program, we evaluate it through a number of different means. For the first five years, we had pre- and post tests that we analyzed the data of to see if were seeing differences in stigma, attitudes and knowledge regarding mental health. That information was very encouraging and showed that, in fact, we did see statistically significant improvements. Even though some of the training is for a fairly short time period—let's say that in basic training they might receive three hours of training—we were still seeing very encouraging results.
We also included questions in the Canadian Forces mental health survey that Statistics Canada conducted, which indicated that over 70% of Canadian Armed Forces members had received mental health training, and there were questions on whether they found it effective for dealing with daily stressors or sometimes more extreme stressors, so there's data available there.
We've inserted questions into other studies that have been done, looking at whether people use some of the training on deployment, whether they have increased their use of positive coping skills versus negative coping skills after receiving the training. Then, we've just finished rebuilding our program logic model to identify additional outcomes that we can measure in the coming years.
We continue to look at innovative and creative ways to study it, not only what happens in the classroom but how people are going to apply it in their day-to-day lives and how it might actually contribute to their ability to cope with the demands of daily life.