Evidence of meeting #9 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:25 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
I'd be very curious to read that report.
Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, could you tell us how military members are prepared, from a mental health standpoint, of course, when an operation that unique is conducted in Canada?
2:25 p.m.
LCol Suzanne Bailey
That is, in fact, an interesting question, because as you have identified, this was different from anything that the Canadian Armed Forces members had been asked to do before. There were obviously some unique challenges, such as how to deploy people within a pandemic environment and into a community that might be the same community that some of the people lived in. It was a very different patient population. As you know, our Canadian Armed Forces members are between the ages of 17 and 60, and those would be the types of patients that our care providers would be used to seeing. We're a fairly healthy population because we're screened and we do a lot of physical training. A fair amount of training went in, not just mental health training. There were about eight to ten different training modules preparing the members to go in and provide a very different type of care to a different population.
The specific role that I had with my team was to look at how to mentally prepare them to deal with some of the demands of caring for those patients, and also to take care of themselves and to look out for their buddies and the teams they were working with throughout what, at the time, was going to be a task of unknown duration.
A lot of focus was put on making sure that they were rotating through different tasks and that they weren't working overly long hours. There was also emphasis on teaching them as well as their leadership how to support each other within the small teams they were working in, as well as depending on the mental health support resources that we had put in place for them.
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
2:30 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Vanier Institute of the Family
I want to mention that one of the things we've been studying about COVID is the fact that what makes it particularly unique is that as people are responding, whether they are health care, emergency services or military members, they are also going through it at exactly the same time, unlike going into a humanitarian situation where you're going into a post-hurricane, and you weren't living through the hurricane. These members were and still are living with COVID. They're worried about their kids. They're worried about their families. They might have gone to school in the neighbourhood. As Lieutenant Colonel Bailey said, they know these neighbourhoods; they know these communities.
The fact that they too are responding to COVID and are worried about their own families and their own grandparents makes it doubly difficult. It's something that we're really trying to understand, because we've done the best we can to support people in this situation but as you said, this is very new.
It's the same with researchers. Researchers normally research something that they're not directly involved in. COVID's a different story, so it's a really complicated time, and we will be studying this for decades, and we will be living with the impact of this for a hundred years.
Thank you for that really important question.
2:30 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
If I could come back to you again, Colonel Wright and Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, I just have a question about the Road to Mental Readiness. I was very happy to see and understand that families also have access to this training. I guess my question is a couple of things.
First, Ms. Spinks talked earlier about how it's not always just the family; it's that circle of support that you have. I'm just wondering if the circle of support and whatever that family system may look like for an individual member are included, and if people who they identify as their support folks are welcome to join this.
The other part of the question is this: How does DND evaluate the results of the program and sort of take that opportunity to improve or increase some of the best practices?
That would be so helpful. Thank you.
2:30 p.m.
Col Helen Wright
Madam Chair, I'm going to pass the question straight over to Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, who is the expert.
2:30 p.m.
LCol Suzanne Bailey
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.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Colonel Wright, you mentioned the crisis line that was being used both for military members and for military families. Would you be able to report back to the committee with data on how often those crisis lines are used?
2:35 p.m.
Col Helen Wright
Madam Chair, of course, we'd be happy to do that.
I can give you a quick thumbnail. I think over 4,000 different members and family members used the Canadian Forces member assistance program last year, and I think about 3,000 or a little over used the family information line, but we would be happy to give you the numbers on that.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I appreciate that.
I assume that some of that might be with regard to domestic violence and people calling in for military police to come.
2:35 p.m.
Col Helen Wright
Absolutely. It's a broad spectrum.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I appreciate that.
The CAF suicide prevention action plan lists 15 objectives, and objective 7 reads, “Barriers to care, such as stigma, are eliminated”, so we want to make sure that we're eliminating as much stigma as possible.
You've already mentioned that part of the culture within the Canadian Armed Forces is that nobody wants to ever claim that they're weak. Often with mental health, the stigma is that if you're having mental health challenges, you're weak. Have enough changes happened? What type of programs have you brought into place to change that culture?
2:35 p.m.
Col Helen Wright
Absolutely it is vital that we shift the culture. I like to think it has come along a fair way, which isn't to suggest that we don't still have work to do, for sure.
Perhaps I will pass this one over to Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey to talk about as well. It isn't just programs like Road to Mental Readiness. It is a fantastic program, but it also teaches literacy about mental health so that members understand it better. That is part of our method of trying to break down some of these, if I may be permitted to say, “old school” ideas about how people should handle these things. It is by no means the only program.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Over the last decade, we have started to see buddy checks and making sure how everybody is feeling. The troops are now prepared to talk about their feelings and what they're going through and the challenges they have in their day-to-day lives.
2:35 p.m.
Col Helen Wright
Precisely.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I think that goes back to R2MR.
Before we turn it back to Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, one of the questions was about self-harm and the impact of paragraph 98(c) of the National Defence Act. You said that you are not aware of that creating any problems by way of either increasing or preventing suicide. Would you say that paragraph 98(c) is agnostic on the issue of mental health, or is it a deterrent if it's not something that's a barrier?
Chair, her audio is frozen.
Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, would you be able to answer that?
2:35 p.m.
LCol Suzanne Bailey
I will do my best to answer that. It appears that Colonel Wright's feed is frozen.
The interesting thing about paragraph 98(c) is that from my knowledge, and I've been in the CAF over 34 years, I would be inclined to think that most Canadian Armed Forces personnel are not even aware of paragraph 98(c) of the National Defence Act. That being said, I know there have been discussions for many years about changing that. I don't see what possible benefit it could provide.
For the most part, I think when Canadian Armed Forces members are impacted by mental health and are struggling and trying to identify solutions to their issues, I wouldn't think that this particular issue would come to the forefront when they're struggling in their darkest times.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
In your opinion, paragraph 98(c) doesn't add to the overall stigma within the Canadian Armed Forces. You're saying that nobody is even aware of it. We know that it's rarely used, because hardly ever do you hear of somebody actually going out and literally shooting themselves in the foot to avoid service. The only time it has been used...or in some cases, was for those who actually tried to commit suicide.
So the elimination of that paragraph of the act shouldn't create any problems.
2:40 p.m.
LCol Suzanne Bailey
I wouldn't think so. From the numerous studies we've had on stigma and other barriers to care, it is not one that has registered with significant numbers.
