Evidence of meeting #41 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
All right. Thank you.
Can you give just a ballpark figure for the annual budget of the fund?
3:55 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
On the public side, the annual baseline budget is about $454,000. That's not including the military salaries and some of the other salaries that are included in that. From the Soldier On fund crown trust fund we spend approximately $1 million a year, and last year we raised $789,000.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Okay. Thank you.
Do you have any sort of formal partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada?
3:55 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
We do. It was signed in December of last year. It's a collaboration agreement to get more veterans to access our program. It's more about communications and how we can work together in sync to make sure the opportunities are distributed across the country to all the Veterans Affairs case managers in all the Veterans Affairs offices.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Thank you.
When a Canadian Forces member can't return to work due to physical injury, if they presented to your program, what would be the first step you would take?
3:55 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
If they weren't available to go back to work, we would see what they're interested in. They would register with Soldier On, so they could tell us what sports they're interested in, and then we'd look at our operational calendar. If it was golf, we would say, “We have a golf camp coming up. Put your name in; apply for the golf camp.” First-timers would get selected as priority to attend that golf camp, to go to a camp. From there, hopefully they're inspired enough, and if they say “Golf is expensive; I can't afford green fees or clubs,” we would offset the cost of that equipment so they can have an active lifestyle for the rest of their life.
In addition, we set up social media groups that are private for the ill and injured community so they can still stay connected after a camp, or in a golf group so they can see who wants to go golfing on a weekend, for example, and maintain their active lifestyle through that.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Excellent. Thank you.
Ms. Ogilvie, would you be able to give us an idea of or identify any positive changes in the management of veterans and the services provided for their families? Can you think of any systematic improvements that have taken place in the past year or so?
3:55 p.m.
Director, Family Services, Military Family Services, Department of National Defence
The veteran family program is only a year old right now. Of the people who are involved in the program, we're seeing significant increases in their capacity to be able to transition from military to civilian life. It's a short period of time, but what we're anecdotally hearing from many of the people who are involved is that it was a long time in coming and they're very happy with the services that are now available to them. They wish this had been here for years.
There are a number of collateral impacts happening: for parents of veterans or medically released veterans and their families who are receiving services, and children and youth of those medically released members, the services they hadn't been receiving before. There are some additional outputs happening versus just directly to the veteran and a spouse.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Thank you.
This may be too broad a question to answer in the minute we have left, but what kind of support do these centres offer family members of a veteran who suffers a mental health problem?
4 p.m.
Director, Family Services, Military Family Services, Department of National Defence
There is a variety of services. It really depends on what their individual needs are. An intake is done with the member or with a veteran and their spouse or their family member when they come in. Based on what their unique family characteristics are, they're either provided direct services or directed to local community services. That interview primarily will focus on what kind of counselling or what level of intervention they are going to require, both from a caregiving point of view and from what the person suffering from the injury will need.
I don't know if I did that in a minute.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
That was exactly a minute. Thank you very much.
4 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you very much for being here. I have so many questions.
Mr. Feyko, I want to begin with you.
You talked about the second point in terms of the recreational opportunities that you provide: fly fishing, hockey, and hiking. Do many female veterans take part in this? What is the take-up in regard to these recreational opportunities?
4 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
There are a number of female participants in the Soldier On program. For example, the team for the Invictus Games that are coming up is around 30% female. We don't delineate during the camps. It's conducive to the CF population. It's the same ratio coming to the Soldier On camps.
4 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
You provide grants for equipment so that people can continue on in recreational activities. Is there a significant take-up of those grants? Do a lot of people get hooked into this program and then take advantage of the grants?
4 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
Yes, absolutely.
So many people get inspired through one of our camps. Then they ask for the money to buy that piece of equipment so when they're in a stressful situation or they're challenged they can go out for a bike ride, or go kayaking, or go fly fishing just to be active. Over 700 people last year applied for grants.
4 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
That's very good. That sounds very encouraging.
You talked about the budget and the fact that you have to raise funds through public donors. It always struck me that it's very difficult, and it's hard when you have to rely on the generosity or benevolence of donors.
Do you have any difficulty with regard to funding the program delivery piece?
4 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
We haven't yet. Last year was the first year that we ended up expending more money than we generated. We're having mitigating strategies being developed to figure out how we can maintain and sustain that Soldier On funding.
4 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay. That sounds very challenging when you have such great need and there's a shortfall. Have you been successful in terms of that mitigation?
4 p.m.
Maj Jason Feyko
We have so far. We haven't been in a deficit yet, or we haven't had any issues whatsoever with the funding on either the public or the non-public sides.
4 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay. Thank you very much.
Madam Ogilvie, thank you, too, for being here, and thank you for what you do.
You talked about the services and about the fact that no two resource centres are exactly alike. I wonder if you could describe how the services diverge in terms of one community or another. What would that look like?
4 p.m.
Director, Family Services, Military Family Services, Department of National Defence
If you take a smaller community like Goose Bay, the services available in that community are much less than somewhere like Toronto. One of the principles of the military family services program is that we're not duplicating or competing with services that are available in the local community. The intent is to refer to a community service provider directly delivering a service. In Toronto, for example, they may refer families to mental health counsellors in the community, versus what happens in Goose Bay, where mental health services will be provided by a military family resource centre staff person. It depends on what the needs are of a particular community, what the families are saying their needs are, what's also available in that community, and if those services available in the community meet the direct needs of what the military family lifestyle experiences are. In large urban centres like Toronto, there may not be as many as a community like Petawawa, where it is very tailored to the military family or the veteran family life experience.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay. Thank you.
How important are the services for CF members living with OSI? How can the provision of these services be improved? Is it a matter of training? It is a matter of monetary support? How can we make it better?
4:05 p.m.
Director, Family Services, Military Family Services, Department of National Defence
I can't really speak directly to the services provided by the Canadian Armed Forces for someone with an operational stress injury, but I can speak to the supports that are available to families of a member who has an operational stress injury. There's a variety of different types of services that are available. Again, no one person, or their requirements, are the same as any other. It's about providing a suite of services or a catalogue of services that they're able to access in their particular community.
There's a variety of different ways that someone can get access to service. Probably one of the bigger challenges that we face, as I mentioned earlier, is awareness of the type of services that are available in a community and getting the message out to people. That remains as one of the key challenges we've been trying to address, looking at every opportunity to be able to do it.
