Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Patricia Henry. I served in the Canadian Armed Forces for over 37 years and retired as a colonel in 2019. Since my retirement, I've had the opportunity to go back to school and access programs from Veterans Affairs Canada, or VAC—in particular the VAC education and training benefit.
I joined a team of veterans, at Willis College here in Ottawa and nationally online, called the military and veterans partnership team, or MVP. The role of the MVP team is to assist veterans back at school. We are a team of three veterans on staff whose sole function is to help the admissions advisers, financial advisers and instructors, but most importantly to help the veterans with anything and everything that might be a barrier to their graduation.
Through our research, we know that female veterans prefer to speak to other female veterans, which is part of my role. We also know that a flexible schedule is important for female veterans. That is built right into all our programs, whether it be face to face, remotely or online. We connect with veterans during the admissions process and stay with them throughout their time back at school, offering peer support.
Veterans back at school reach out to us for assistance on a wide variety of issues. That includes helping veterans navigate their time at school during a family crisis, addressing issues that might arise in the classroom and assisting veterans in understanding and accessing support from VAC, just to name a few.
Finally, we have worked extensively with all the staff at our colleges on how to work effectively with veterans to help ensure that our schools are veteran-friendly. In the end, we have worked with hundreds of veterans back at school to help them complete their educations and find meaningful and gainful employment following their military service.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to speak today.