As is my understanding, you essentially have to be lined up the second your release date is known. If I recall correctly, I think you have 18 to 24 months, roughly, to be covered by Canadian Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Services on your way out. There's also a program in place by SISIP that actually covers a certain amount of time as well, but again with that time window, you have to be moving toward that before your release date, and there's a certain time when you can access that.
As was my understanding, I had to go into the system right away. If I didn't use it at that point, I would have lost it completely and my window of opportunity to use it would have been over. The other problem, too, is that if you do not go into these systems, you have no financial support. Currently, if I were not under Canadian Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Services, that would pretty much be it for me. I would be receiving the permanent impairment allowance, I think, which doesn't amount to much, and I would left on my own to try to go forward into the civilian world, find employment, do all this other stuff, rather than getting the skills I need to actually help me succeed.
My understanding is that those are the opportunities you have, and it's a very finite window that you have to kind of take advantage of that.