Thank you very much for the introduction. Let's hope that clear picture holds.
I'll begin briefly by introducing myself and the work the Veterans Transition Network does, which I think will help contextualize the questions I can address and the input I can provide.
Thank you very much for the invitation to provide testimony today.
The Veterans Transition Network is a registered Canadian charity, which delivers the veterans transition programs. Our organization is just rounding its fifth year. It was incorporated in 2012, but the program we deliver has been around for about 20 years. It was initially developed at the University of British Columbia by a collection of counselling psychologists and physicians based there. The program was created with the intention of helping current and former members of the Canadian Forces to identify and overcome barriers to transition back into civilian life. The first pilot program was run in the late nineties, and for the next five years it was researched and developed at UBC with support from the Royal Canadian Legion, the B.C. Command, and it's been delivered continuously since that time. The program that we deliver probably reached its stable configuration in the early 2000s, and from that time it was continually delivered through the University of British Columbia with support from the Royal Canadian Legion.
In 2012, the Veterans Transition Network was incorporated, first as a not-for-profit but now as a registered charity, with the mission of bringing this program across Canada to all those who need it.
Since that time, we've expanded into seven provinces across Canada where we're delivering continually. We now deliver programs for men and women of the Canadian Forces in English and French.
The past five years have really been about building an operational and a clinical infrastructure across Canada to scale up our ability to deliver these programs as the requests continue to come in.
I'll speak a little bit about the work that our program does. It's delivered in a group format. It's a group program delivered in a retreat style. It consists of 10 days in total, but it's split up into three workshops or what we call three phases. The first two phases are four days long, the final phase is two days long, and there's a two- to three-week break between each.
There is a very purposeful design to the program, with the idea that each phase or each workshop is focused on specific issues that the individuals who are attending may be facing in their transition.
During that time, they work to develop skills and insights into what they may be struggling with in their transition. They rehearse skills, and then at the end of each phase, they set goals for applying those skills and working to overcome barriers in the time between those days on the program.
They go back to their day-to-day lives for two to three weeks with certain goals in mind that they have set with the group. They work on applying the new skills that they've learned in the program, and then they come back in the next phase, reporting on what's working and what's not, and picking up new skills and insights, continuing to work through that transition.
The total program takes place over about a four- to six-week period, and during that time, they'll do roughly 100 hours of clinical work in a group setting.
I'll talk a little bit about our research. A very important part of growing this program across Canada has been collecting the outcome research to demonstrate that the program is safe and effective.
Currently, we have a research team at the University of British Columbia headed by Dr. Dan Cox, who is conducting outcome research for our program. We measure immediately before and after, and at three months, 12 months, and 18 months post program.
We now have a large enough sample size to know that our data is significant and that we're seeing significant and lasting change. We're seeing large reductions in symptom clusters around post-traumatic stress, things like anxiety, depression, and hypervigilance. We're seeing an increase in self-esteem, and we're seeing a very large drop in suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts.
Roughly a third of the individuals who enter our program are experiencing suicidal thoughts on either an occasional or a frequent basis, and that number drops by 80%. Eighty percent of them are no longer experiencing suicidal thoughts a year and a half after the program is complete, which is the last point we measure.
As I said, our mission over the last five years has been to expand the reach of this program, which means raising a lot of funding, training a lot of clinicians across Canada, and working to really put the message of our program and its availability out there to the veteran and military community.
In 2012, when we were incorporated as a registered charity, Veterans Affairs Canada reviewed our program, reviewed our research, and accepted us as a service provider. We have been working as a service provider for the past five years with Veterans Affairs Canada, and we're paid on a per-client basis for Veterans Affairs clients who come to our program and whose claim would extend to cover the program, which roughly makes up about a third of our clients.
For the other two-thirds of the men and women who are taking our programs, we're paying out of pocket. We're partnered with various provincial commands of the Royal Canadian Legion across Canada. A number of corporations such as Boeing and London Drugs provide us with funding, and organizations such as True Patriot Love have been an enormous help in getting these programs off the ground and getting them funding. That really covers the background on our organization.
In terms of the questions—I've reviewed the questions that were sent out for the witnesses—I think that given the focus of our organization, I'm probably best suited to answer questions 3, 7, and 8, with regard to transition and with regard to how not-for-profits and community organizations can work with Veterans Affairs.
That's something we've been working to do quite a lot of over the last five years.