Our mission is to establish, develop, and improve social support programs for Canadian Forces members, veterans, and their families. As Ms. Darte has indicated, our focus and the way we do this is as a peer-based program. We define “peer” as an individual who has been through an OSI, in the case of Cyndi, for example, or an individual like Laryssa, who has lived with someone suffering from an OSI, so she can help others like her through the recovery process.
Our mandate is focusing again on developing a national peer support network. As Kathy said, we started with the members and the veterans. We moved on to families. We implemented a model in 2006 for bereavement--so families who lost a serving member, in particular, with the Afghanistan mission--and that has become quite an important aspect of our services. We're also considering developing a peer support program for military members, veterans, and their families who are dealing with a physical injury. We conducted a needs analysis in 2007, and we're starting very slowly to look at that component as well.