Thank you for that question, because that's something I was going to try to state myself, but you have really just laid it out for me. You're exactly right. This is something that we're really trying to do as an organization, find veterans and even service members who are in the process of release and connect with them earlier.
We know that a number of the individuals who reach out to ask for our help do so when they're losing their spouse, when they're disconnecting from their family, or when they are going down the road of potentially feeling suicidal. That's reflected in one-third of our participants, those thinking about suicide on either an occasional or a frequent basis. We are catching a lot of individuals much later than we would like.
In terms of the range, we see individuals, about 15% to 20% of our participants, who are in the process of releasing or are active in the military, so they're still in. The majority, about 80% of those who participate in our programs, are veterans, and they range all the way from just released to.... I think last year we had a World War II veteran attend our program.
There's a huge range of when we're reaching people. Absolutely, our goal is to reach them earlier. One of our hopes—and certainly we've been working on this for quite some time—is that we would like to be a service provider to the Department of National Defence as we are with Veterans Affairs. We could reach these individuals earlier in this transition, as they're transitioning, or just after they've made or started to make that transition and are realizing that they are struggling with some of these issues.
In particular, Nora talked about the issue of identity in the transition. That's one we work very closely with, and I can't agree more with her statement. The transition from military to civilian life is not finding a new career. That's wrapped up in it, but it is finding a new identity and a new sense of purpose. Often that does not meet the diagnostic criteria of a medical or a psychological condition, and so—