Veterans Affairs committee  I can perhaps shed some light on that, Mr. Chair. The VAC assistance service is a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 1-800 number that is available to veterans and family members. Family members are free to access that service. It provides short-term counselling for situations that may be o

Veterans Affairs committee  The case management functions and the engagement and relationship-building that are established at the outset and throughout the case management process are not new. This is a practice within case management that has existed for a long time, and certainly one that we've had in pl

Veterans Affairs committee  The goals are established mutually between the veteran and the case manager. It's not the case manager dictating the goals. It's working with the veteran to establish realistic goals, given the veteran's health situation and given the skills the person has attained through the mi

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of Veterans Affairs' position and research around the services we provide and the programs we offer to veterans, the research and the collaboration we have with our international partners has been well established. We've looked at the work ongoing in the U.S., Britain, a

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. Case management services are available to veterans whenever they need them and for as long as they need them. As I described in my opening remarks, the relationship between the case manager and the veteran is about establishing goals, realistic goals

Veterans Affairs committee  That is one of the elements of streamlining decision-making and improving the timeliness of decisions. The other is the authority the case managers have been given, as of about a year ago, to actually make decisions on specific benefits and services that veterans need to support

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  We've introduced one tool that allows us to measure risk of veterans who are being case-managed, and in fact those who are not being case-managed. It allows us to assess the risks to see whether they may in fact be in need of case management services. The risk tool is one that w

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the question. Certainly our outreach strategy, in terms of Veterans Affairs, is very much in response to the studies that have been done that would indicate a veteran population not currently accessing services of the department. Through that outreach st

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. Colonel Bernier, I don't know if you want to comment on this question.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. The case management function is a very critical and important function within Veterans Affairs, and we want to ensure that our case managers have a caseload that is reasonable within a standard of practice, so that they can dedicate the time required

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the release of modern-day veterans, we have been finding for a number of years that the complexity of the health and re-establishment circumstances of those releasing members is different, obviously, from the traditional clients with whom Vetera

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I have a couple of examples whereby we have delegated decision-making authority to what we call the front line, making sure the decisions are made as close to the veteran as possible, whereas in the past, some of those decisions had to be escalated to either regional o

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct.