Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, colleagues.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this session. I am joined by my colleagues, Anne-Marie Pellerin, director, case management and support services; and Natalie Pham, our client service team manager from our Montreal office. We are happy to be here to support this committee's study of the new Veterans Charter. We realize that time is tight and we have a lot to cover, so I will get started.
The practice of case management began over 100 years ago in the United States, when, during the early 1900s, public health nurses and social workers coordinated health and human services for the poor and the immigrants. Throughout the course of history Veterans Affairs Canada has responded to the needs of veterans and their families through the delivery of programs, benefits, and support services, including case management. We have been providing counselling services to veterans for over 30 years.
In recent years, Canada and our department have faced an unprecedented shift in veteran demographics. Traditional veterans are, sadly, passing away in great numbers, while the modern-day veteran population is on the rise. We are also dealing with the fact that many modern-day veterans are being released from service with more complex health and re-establishment needs. These factors have forced us to re-examine what we do and how we deliver service as a department to ensure we are fully responsive to the diverse and changing needs of those we serve.
With the introduction of the new Veterans Charter, the department began focusing on ability over disability, on ensuring that veterans can make the best recovery possible, as quickly as possible. Our case management practices serve as the foundation of this modern service approach.
Since 2006, the provision of VAC case management services has evolved and additional improvements have been made to better support veterans with complex needs. Today, through our transformation action plan, we continue to evolve and enhance our case management practices to ensure that we are aligned with best practices in the field of case management.
The VAC case management model focuses on a holistic needs-based approach that is based upon the determinants of health as established by the World Health Organization. Case management services enable veterans and their families to establish and achieve mutually agreed-upon goals through a collaborative, organized, and dynamic approach. This interactive, problem-solving approach is coordinated by the VAC case manager, and includes six core functions: engagement and relationship building; comprehensive assessment; analysis; case planning and consultation; monitoring and evaluation; and disengagement.
Collaboration is the key. The case manager works in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of internal and external experts, including physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, and mental health professionals. It is important to note that case management services are not required by all veterans. Case management is available to all veterans who require this service based upon their assessed level of risk, need, and complexity. As of the last quarter, just over 7,000 of the more than 135,000 veterans we serve are receiving case management services from a network of 220 case managers across Canada.
Our national standard ensures that the veteran-to-case manager ratio is within a range of 40:1. Today, we are well within that target. Approximately 91% of our case-managed veterans are Canadian armed forces veterans. War service veterans make up 6% of our case-managed clientele.
Our department offers transition services, including case management, at 24 integrated personnel support centres. Transition services enable us to work collaboratively with Canadian armed forces colleagues to ensure a smooth transition for those releasing from the military and re-establishing in civilian life.
Our case managers come with a diversity of educational backgrounds. Our qualifications require that they have a degree from a recognized university, with a specialization in social work, nursing, psychology, or some other specialty relevant to the position. A review of the education and experience of our case managers conducted in 2011 revealed that one in five holds a master's-level degree, and almost two-thirds have five or more years of case management experience. Additionally, an asset qualification when hiring, priority is given to candidates who have experience in dealing with a military culture, who were a member of the Canadian armed forces, or are experienced as a case worker in the rehabilitation environment. These factors indicate a varied and experienced workforce, something of which we are very proud.
To ensure veterans and their families receive the best service possible, we need to equip our case managers with the very best tools and training available to support them in this very important role. Our transformation action plan is aggressive in this regard. Over the past two years, our department has implemented various tools, supports, and training to enhance case management services. We have reinforced standards and best practices, provided extensive training, particularly in the area of mental health, and provided tools to better manage our workload and our resources.
Investments in case management to date include workload intensity tools that measure the risk, the need, and the complexity of cases that are managed for veterans. These tools enable us to evaluate the work and workloads of case managers based on the level of risk, complexity, and the intensity associated with each and every veteran's situation. They also include a national case management learning strategy that focuses on practices, skills, and development; improved national standards and guidelines; and the development of a national competency profile for case managers.
The investments we have made in the practice and delivery of case management, and in our case managers, is paying dividends for those veterans who are most at risk. As a result, we are now better able to identify veterans who are at risk, and much more, able to ensure that the appropriate resources are in place to address those risks.
As a result of our work over the past several years, we have strengthened service delivery with a view to improving outcomes for those we serve.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
