Evidence of meeting #66 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Davidson Institute
Do you mean moving our program or just having access to any program?
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
I mean, there are challenges, not just with the geography but potentially also with language. French is what I'm referring to.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Yes.
I wonder if that's something we should be addressing. How do you replicate what you're doing in Vernon across Canada?
Davidson Institute
Well, actually, we could. We've thought about it and talked about it, but right now we don't actually have the resources and referrals to do that.
We initially were approved to have a clinic where we are located in the Okanagan, and in Vancouver and in Calgary, but given what has happened with the problems with VAC and the drop in referrals, we're kind of stuck, honestly, trying to survive in the Okanagan.
Having said that, people do travel to our program from all across the country, from coast to coast. The reality seems to be that in Atlantic Canada, for example, there are not many resources. In the northern regions there are not many resources. Sometimes in the interior of the Prairies there aren't many resources. People fly to our program. This is paid for by VAC. It's part of the cost.
The reality is that people do seem to do well. They go on to build good lives. They don't require years and years of ongoing care, which costs a lot of money.
There's also collateral damage to families, and we run a couples program, which is quite unique. We really believe that's important.
We have a lot of ideas about solutions in terms of changing the culture, if you will. That's doable. Changing even some of the organizational business strategies and the practices that Adrienne was alluding to from a business perspective—all of this is quite doable. As the other witnesses have talked about, there are solutions. You can implement them. Just get a management consultant, for example.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you.
I think I may have been a little ambitious in my hope to get to everybody, but if the chair will allow me, I would like to ask that if you have specific recommendations, you submit them to the clerk. All of that information is taken into consideration.
Again, thank you all for being here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Mr. May.
We now go to Mr. Desilets for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Davidson‑Helgerson, what do the higher-ups at Veterans Affairs Canada think of your program?
Director of Operations, Operational Stress Recovery, Davidson Institute
All they can really operate on is what their clients tell them, because they have pretty much no interaction with us aside from that.
Often, veterans and RCMP.... It's first responders. Basically, anyone who has VAC coverage can access our program, so we get a lot of RCMP and veterans. They're usually begging their case manager to come to us, so the case managers who are familiar with our program and have some training, experience, education and understanding of mental health totally see how we are the best practices—the cutting edge, based on the current research—and they really appreciate and respect that.
There are some who have insurance backgrounds and don't understand trauma-informed care who say, “Well, why would we send you over there when we can just send you to this one that's closer?”
It depends on whom you speak to, but the ones who are trauma-informed understand and appreciate what we're offering.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Picking up on what Mr. May said earlier, I'd like to know whether you have the visibility you need with Veterans Affairs Canada to market your services and grow your program?
Director of Operations, Operational Stress Recovery, Davidson Institute
This is actually the challenge for us, because there's so much secrecy and we don't even understand how to.... If we change our services, do we need to...? What is the process? I don't think there really is one.
We have tons of ideas, including a hybrid—real-time, remote, but also in-person—virtual program delivery, which we could deliver across the country. People would have the psycho-education as well as real-time group components, because a group is incredibly important for this population, and humans in general. Most of them are very isolated.
We have all of these things, but we don't know how to.... We have spent so many hours on the phone with VAC, asking how we can deliver this program, and it's not clear. We would love to know how.
Davidson Institute
I would like to quickly add that in terms of offering it virtually, during COVID, on about two days' notice, we actually had a group of women ready to go. We switched to virtual and offered the entire thing virtually, and we managed to iron out most of the kinks. It was quite remarkable.
Even now, the programs are in person, but there's always a virtual option, and it's not uncommon to have one or two people tapping in online. It's quite doable, and it's possibly the way of the future.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you.
We're going to close this session with the last intervention from Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to come back to the Davidson Institute. Again, I'll let you guys decide who's the best person to answer.
First, I want to say that, as a B.C. MP, I really got a kick out of what you said about Vernon being the north. I was more north than that, growing up. I'm now on the island, but I remember finding out what the real north of B.C. is. That's another story for another day.
I also want to say I've heard from other service providers that they used to be able to do “lunch and learn” with people who worked for VAC, and that was what really engaged people with their programs. Now that they have no capacity—and it was already a challenge for them to figure out when they could come in and do that—it's really slowed down the number of people coming to access services.
It sounds like that is a very clear challenge. If we don't know what the services from VAC are, then we don't know whom to refer to, and that doesn't meet the needs of people.
I'm wondering about a couple of things. Do you have stats that you could share with the committee about the success, the effectiveness and veteran satisfaction? I think knowing how that feels...we've heard testimony today that it was very empowering, but it would be great to have those stats to help us better understand the outcome.
I'm also wondering if you could share what the numbers look like. You talked about there being more, and now they're getting less. It would be good for us to understand the numbers.
The third thing is where you're getting stuck. You gave a lot of testimony today about the frustration of working with VAC, but I think in terms of “here's where we get stuck the most”, it would be really helpful for us as a committee, so that we can better articulate it in the report and VAC can see that's what the challenge is.
Davidson Institute
Thank you for the question.
Do you want to start with the stats first?
Director of Operations, Operational Stress Recovery, Davidson Institute
I wanted to just touch on the stats thing. We conduct pre- and post-program data measures with every group, and one thing that we find challenging is that it is very difficult to get over some biases. There's a fear that their benefits will be reduced or taken away if they lose their PTSD diagnosis, or if they get too much better. That's always something that potentially skews our data.
Our research is mostly program evaluation. It's a lot of qualitative data. We do have quantitative data. I don't know whether it would be relevant enough to just start spouting off some of the data, but we use the Beck depression inventory and then we know what the measurable increase would be. Ours is competitive, if not better than what you would hope to expect in that time frame.
Davidson Institute
That information is on the website. We could submit the details. We do a lot of pre- and post-testing, as well as qualitative feedback. We have virtually no dropouts. People come and they don't leave—I mean they don't drop out.
Davidson Institute
We don't let them go. We lock them down.
I'm sorry. I'm getting a little punchy. We rolled in at three in the morning.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
It's a good note to end on, Dr. Rochford. Thank you so much. We can all laugh at the end of this meeting.
On behalf of the members of the committee and myself, thank you for your participation in this study on the experience of women veterans.
Honourable members, joining us today as individuals, we had the Honourable Beverley Ann Busson, veteran, senator and retired RCMP commissioner, as well as Anna‑Lisa Rovak, veteran.
From the Davidson Institute, we had with us Adrienne Davidson‑Helgerson, director of operations, operational stress recovery, and Tina Rochford.
Lastly, by video conference, we had Eleanor Taylor, manager of community engagement and advocacy at the True Patriot Love Foundation.
I'd like to thank our interpreters, technicians, clerk and analyst for their support during the meeting. A reminder that we will be continuing the study on the experience of women veterans on Thursday.
The meeting is adjourned.