Absolutely.
During what we call “the tran”, the transition interview, that's when a client service agent will sit with the CF member—they're still in CAF—and go through a questionnaire with them and ask them certain things, and try to establish their risk. We'll ask if they've been injured. We like it when they bring their health files, but they have to request them. We can't. We can go through the process with them.
It's outside the SCAN. There are 300 people at the SCAN. Mélanie talks to a crowd. That transition interview is a one-on-one interview with the individual. Hopefully you bring your family. We encourage strongly, but some do, some don't. So you go through it.
If the client service agent realizes...Medically releasing, it's a case manager; for all the other regular forces, it's a client service agent. So the case manager will go into much more depth with the medical releasing, because we already know you're releasing because you can't meet universality of service. There's already a premise for your leaving. In the other cases, we don't know, so we're going to look at it, and as Mélanie discussed in the SCAN, we're going to ask what do they want to do once they're released.
If you have 35 years of service and you're 50, 52, 53 years old, you may be very happy to take your pension. However, in the case that Mélanie was showing, which is someone with nine years of service, you do have to live and support your family, so employment becomes very important. We ask those important questions: around the family, as Mélanie highlighted, around health, around their career—what they want to do. We encourage them to apply for rehab. Everybody should apply for rehab within that 120 days. It keeps their rights open long term, so we encourage them to apply for rehab. They have that discussion.
If it's not medically releasing and they realize this person's at risk based on what they're saying—stress injuries or mental health injuries—there are signals, and I'm not a health care professional, but the health care professionals can recognize them—they will refer that individual, even if they're not medically releasing, to a case manager to go more in depth and to ensure they have a case manager.
We are working...and you made recommendations on the ACVA report on transition. There's also a joint steering committee on ACVA that I co-chair with General Millar, where we are really trying to eliminate that seam, because there is still a seam, and I know our two ombudsmen are also looking at transition currently: how can we facilitate that for the member, from a member's perspective, not from VAC's perspective. At the end of the day it's not VAC, it's for the retiring veteran. For regular forces that is mandatory.