Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, sir. It's been a pleasure.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. As I mentioned, one of our challenges is tracking people down once they leave defence. It's only when they put in a compensation claim through the Department of Veterans' Affairs that we can really find out where they are, how they're going, and whether they have any

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Certainly every time one of our defence force members commits suicide, there's always a coroner's inquiry by the state coroner, but that's only one part of it. Major Damien Hadfield, our suicide prevention program desk officer, who works with me, always looks through the ps

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you mean in terms of using the programs for the veteran community?

Veterans Affairs committee  Because the BattleSMART program is cognitive behavioural therapy, it needs to be delivered by psychologists at this stage. We may be looking at a bit of flexibility with that policy down the track. We are expanding our mental health workforce within our defence force, because we'

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not so familiar with the Canadian approach to preventive mental health. I am a bit aware of what the Americans are doing. The Americans have actually borrowed our BattleSMART program. We've worked closely with Dr. Amy Adler and Colonel Carl Castro from the American military

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know exactly when they came into being. I know that they had already been in for quite a while before I joined back in 1987, so they've been going for a long time now. They've gone through some major policy changes. Up until a few years ago, DCO was actually working with

Veterans Affairs committee  I believe so, yes. Certainly the family members, from my experience as a psychologist working with members and their families, often report that the social workers in DCO have helped them and have provided them with the support they needed. However, as I said, we need to work m

Veterans Affairs committee  That's something the Department of Veterans' Affairs is really looking at. I don't know whether it's a priority for them. I can certainly find out. I've mentioned that I'll speak with our Department of Veterans' Affairs about statistics. I can certainly put the question to them a

Veterans Affairs committee  I believe that is the case. I believe they are advised of that, but I can clarify that for you.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I think I do. As I mentioned, that has not been such a priority for us up until now; however, we have had talks with the veteran community about the idea of expanding our psychological resilience programs for veterans. It's something we will be looking at, but it hasn't been

Veterans Affairs committee  At the moment, the LifeSMART program is still being developed. We've had some issues with it. Trying to fit the LifeSMART program into the two-day transition course is not an easy matter because, as you can imagine, at that transition program we have people who are leaving the de

Veterans Affairs committee  At the moment, our defence mental health workforce--our nurses, doctors, and psychologists--do not actually work with families per se. We have a Defence Community Organisation, DCO, and DCO works closely with the families. DCO does not work with individual defence force members

Veterans Affairs committee  No, there's not a commission of inquiry in every case when a member suicides. If it is determined that there are procedures or policies or things that happened leading up to the member's suicide that need to be investigated more thoroughly and that those procedures and policies n

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a few question there. I think we probably share the same sorts of issues you are dealing with. I don't know a lot about this particular area--it's not a field of my expertise--but with regard to your comments that a lot of veterans do not gravitate towards social netwo