National Defence committee  Are you speaking of us?

National Defence committee  Definitely: it would certainly be a project that would interest me. I would think that probably Alison would be very interested as well. When dealing with soldiers, I also like to have the collaboration of the mental health people in Petawawa, for sure, and to have them on board, because I don't think that we can work in silos when we're dealing with servicemen who have a lot of issues and maybe have multi-diagnoses.

National Defence committee  I worked there for a year, yes. I can only speak from what I was working on. I was on the mental health team in Petawawa. We have psychologists, psychiatrists, addictions counsellors, social workers, and mental health professionals. Generally, it's the team working together. My role as a social worker was to go through the three phases of trauma treatment with a client, but we would elicit the help of a psychiatrist who would find a combination of medications that would fit the person well.

National Defence committee  Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to answer that question, because I only had one year of experience. My caseload during that year was mainly working with people who have come out of Afghanistan.

National Defence committee  I'm only speaking from personal experience here. It's very difficult to screen somebody beforehand. I've found that sometimes you can get the best qualities in soldiers who have had previous trauma in their lives: they have been resilient and they've learned coping skills that will make them terrific soldiers.

National Defence committee  Complementary therapies can be effective for certain people. However, in the case of horse-assisted therapy, no studies have been done to prove this. Could you clarify the question?

National Defence committee  I don't think that we're trying to show that it's ineffective.

National Defence committee  No, and that's not what the Department of National Defence is trying to do either. I have a really hard time answering this question. Personally, I believe in horse-assisted therapy and its potential. Unfortunately, this therapy hasn't benefited from studies or investments that could make it an evidence-based approach.

National Defence committee  Basically, anybody who wants to get mental health services is usually already experiencing symptoms. They won't often go as a preventive measure. They will go when they experience symptoms. It doesn't matter to me as a practitioner whether the event was 15 years ago, six months ago, or one year ago.

National Defence committee  I would agree the evidence isn't there, because the money is not there to study this type of therapy, but in my practice I've found that not only do the evidence-based approaches work, and treating a person who has severe trauma.... When we're dealing with trauma in soldiers, they seem to have even more than the normal kind of trauma.

National Defence committee  Oh, definitely. I think it would be really valuable to do that. Unfortunately, equine-assisted therapies are not very old. They haven't been around. They do require us to look at many things also, but they are very efficient. I think that a pilot study specifically for military vet members would be—

National Defence committee  I've just asked Veterans Affairs if they would allow me to do it with a particular gentleman who has some cognitive limitations, and I was told no.

National Defence committee  Yes, for a portion of the treatment of PTSD. There are three phases I use to treat trauma. The first phase is the stabilization phase. I believe that working with horses could be very useful for that phase; you bring a person to an arousal level that's lowered and you build their coping skills.

National Defence committee  No, I haven't looked into that. It might be really interesting, especially if I could get some of the soldiers in Petawawa on that. I think they could benefit. It would be of interest, but I haven't looked into it, no.

National Defence committee  Yes. The way I'd do it is that I would do an in-office assessment of one to two hours. If it's judged that working with horses would be beneficial, then we'd prepare our treatment plan with some goals in mind of what we want this to look like in the end when we're finished. Then, after that, the sessions would be in a ring or a pasture.