INTRODUCTION
Military-to-civilian transition (MCT) is a reality for those who dedicated their lives in service of Canada.
1 Acknowledged as a process that begins before military release, MCT goes on until a Veteran has adjusted to civilian life.
2-5 For most Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members, MCT is a positive and successful experience, but research indicates that between 32% and 56% of individuals experience significant difficulties with transition that impacts all areas of their lives.
1,6-10 A range of external factors, including social, policy, physical, and cultural environments, as well as individual factors such as health, age, experience, and gender, play a role in the MCT process for Canadian Veterans.
1,2,11-13To better understand the wide range of Veterans’ experiences during MCT, the concepts of gender and intersectionality are particularly useful. Intersectionality refers to the complex and cumulative way in which multiple forms of discrimination (based on social categorizations such as ethnicity, race, gender, class, and sexual orientation) create overlapping and interdependent systems of disadvantage for certain individuals or groups. With increased attention on the differing experiences between men and women, studies on the impact of gender and Veterans’ MCT are emerging, but further inquiry about Canadian experiences is still needed.
14-17 Research from the United States indicates women Veterans experience higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, and military sexual trauma than their male counterparts, all of which negatively impact their overall health and well-being.
14 While servicewomen’s roles have attracted attention, studies investigating MCT have largely focused on men. Evidence-based, rather than anecdotical, understanding of the diverse experiences of CAF members and Veterans during their MCT is vital to ensure that programs, services, and resources meet their specific needs.
In 2016, the Veterans Affairs Canada Research Directorate created a well-being framework to position policy, programming, and research to support Canada’s Veterans.
18 This evidence-based and interdisciplinary Veterans Affairs Canada Well-Being Frame-work (VACWF) articulates seven domains of well-being required for a successful transition, including: 1) employment or other meaningful activity, 2) finances, 3) health, 4) life skills and preparedness, 5) social integration, 6) housing and physical environment, and 7) cultural and social environment.
18 Considering the emerging literature identifying the differences in the MCT experience because of gender, as well as the importance of a biopsychosocial approach to MCT as articulated in the VACWF, are there programs, services, and resources currently available to support servicewomen and women Veterans? The purpose of this article is to determine how well Canadian society is supporting the MCT of servicewomen and Veterans relative to the VACWF.
DISCUSSION
Acknowledged throughout the small existing research literature are the unique experiences of servicewomen and women Veterans, warranting the need for programs, services, and resources created to support them during their MCT. This article begins the discussion on what is available to Canada’s women Veterans in supporting all seven areas of their well-being, as articulated by the VACWF, during MCT by sharing the some of the findings from an environmental scan that sought to identify programs, services support at this stage in a military member’s career.
There appears to be a variety of programs, services, and resources aimed at supporting pre-release and post-release military members across Canada, provided across a wide range of sectors including government, academic, private industry, and non-profit. Many of these have been developed and disseminated as a result of increased attention to well-identified needs and gaps in services supported by research and evidence, such as peer support groups for operational stress injuries and other mental health difficulties. There are emerging exemplar programs and services that recognize the unique health and socioeconomic challenges of servicewomen and women Veterans including VTN,
34 the Captain Nichola Goddard Scholarship Fund,
39 and GardaWorld.
22The increasing availability of information on the Internet has enabled servicewomen and women Veterans to learn about, and access, a breadth of programs, services, and resources, both Canadian and international. However, access goes beyond the physical availability of information and needs to include information that is provided in a language understandable by service users.
40 While there are no available statistics on the Veteran population, a 2015 report indicated that 26.7% of CAF Regular Force members spoke French as their first official language.
41 This statistic is higher than the national value of 20.6% as measured in the 2016 census.
42 The availability of truly bilingual programs, services, and resources remains limited in Canada. Although all government-based programs, services, and resources (e.g., VAC, the Department of National Defence) are provided in English and French, many of the innovative non-profit programs and services do not offer French language content beyond their website’s section headings.
Furthermore, existing programs, services, and resources for servicewomen and women Veterans generally fall within two of the seven domains of the VACWF: employment or other meaningful activity and health.
18 This trend reflects emerging research indicating that servicewomen and women Veterans face specific economic and health challenges during their transition. As previously mentioned, few programs, services, and resources focus on social integration, and are generally only available through informal social media groups, such as Facebook and Twitter (e.g., Women Warrior’s Healing Garden and Soldier On) as well as formal and relaxed peer support groups like those of the VTN, VETS Canada, and Wounded Warriors Canada.
Lastly, very few organizations are making efforts to address financial well-being through financial support programs (e.g., the Captain Nichola Goddard Fund) and housing (e.g., VETS’s annual In Her Boots event) despite literature indicating women Veterans experience a higher rate of homelessness and unemployment than their male counterparts.
14Organizations should pay attention to existing exemplar local and unilingual programs, services, and resources. Grassroots programs providing care and community support to underrepresented groups who often feel marginalized, or even unsafe, in traditional programs designed for Veterans, are needed. In that respect, the approach of Women Warriors’ Healing Garden
33 may serve as a model for organizations concerned about the social integration of women Veterans. Private companies wishing to attract the knowledge and talents of women Veterans may want to critically review their human resources policies, hiring practices, and marketing strategies through an intersectional approach to eliminate underlying discriminatory barriers that may hinder employment and complicate MCT, taking examples from efforts being made by GardaWorld.
22Additionally, universities and their funding partners should continue to support evidence-based research about the gendered dimension of MCT. Academic research groups leading the way include: the Alexa McDonough Institute for Women, Gender and Social Justice,
43 the Centre for Social Innovation and Community Engagement in Military Affairs,
44 and the Centre for International and Defence Policy’s Gender Lab at Queen’s University.
45Moreover, international exemplars exist, particularly among countries that share similarities with the CAF. For example, in the United States, the website Operation We Are Here acts as a portal to organizations supporting the military community and provides a brief summary of national and state-based programs, services, and resources.
46 Also out of the United States are programs addressing under-served domains of wellness in Canada. One example is Grace After Fire, which aims to “provide support for and help women veterans of the United States military who are returning from active duty so that they can re-engage as mothers, wives, daughters in civilian life” and appears to speak to the domains of life skills and preparedness and social integration.
47Finally, given advancing knowledge and technology, there are opportunities to increase access to programs, services, and resources for servicewomen and women Veterans living in under-served geographical areas and address the specific access challenges faced by these individuals.
In closing, there are two important gaps that have been identified in the current offering of supports. First, current programs, services, and resources aimed at supporting all military members during transition to civilian life are at risk of inadequately addressing the unique needs and experiences of servicewomen and women Veterans. Furthermore, existing programs, services, and resources aimed at supporting women in specific areas, such as employment, education, and housing, are at risk of inadequately addressing the unique needs and experiences of servicewomen and women Veterans. Further studies examining their specific issues, as well as met and unmet needs, are critically required, as they have the potential to slow down these trends. Future findings may, at last, make it possible for providers to critically review their programs, resources, and services, or elaborate new ones, based on evidence-based research, and eventually close these worrying gaps.