WHAT’S NEW

Share your feedback on Atlas Navigator — survey closes soon!

If you haven’t already completed the survey to share your thoughts on Atlas Navigator, now is the time!

This monthly newsletter was created to keep the Veteran and Family community informed, engaged and connected. Each edition is designed to summarize the latest updates from the Atlas Institute related to the mental health and well-being of Veterans and their Families.

We greatly value feedback from the community to ensure Atlas Navigator remains user-friendly and focused on the topics that are important to you. Share your thoughts by Friday, January 31, 2025 to help shape future editions!

Road to recovery: Josh Muir on alcohol and military culture

Alcohol use can often have a complex and deep-rooted connection with military culture. Corporal (Ret’d) Josh Muir joins Brian and Laryssa in a new podcast episode to explore this link and to share how his journey to sobriety grew from external pressures from loved ones into a deep, personal commitment. Some key topics:

• Josh’s own experience of alcohol in military culture and its impact on relationships
• His strategies to maintain sobriety amid social triggers, like “playing the tape to the end”
• The impacts alcohol can have on sleep
• The positive impacts of long-term sobriety on physical and mental health

Opening up to joy during the holiday season

Feelings of joy, connection and happiness can sometimes feel fleeting or entirely out of reach for Veterans and their Family members impacted by posttraumatic stress injuries.

A new blog post by therapist Adrienne Carfagnini, MSW, RSW, explores why joy can feel elusive and shares practical strategies on how to embrace it. Adrienne offers ideas to help Veterans and Family members experience and be aware of genuine moments of joy, while staying grounded and connected even during difficult times.

COMMUNITY CORNER

The quotes and the “glimmer moments” truly came together, creating a holiday campaign that I can imagine resonates with Veterans and their Families in a meaningful way. Much of it reflects my own experiences.

— Veteran Family member

In case you missed it: Visit our holiday campaign page to learn about glimmer moments.

Atlas travels to the North: Iqaluit 2024

In 2023, the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families visited Iqaluit for the first time to meet with and learn from Veterans, Veteran Family members and service providers. One of the priorities at Atlas is travel to and learn from northern communities alongside other locations across Canada.

We returned in 2024 for this reason, this time with plans to host a booth at the Nunavut Trade Show and Conference. In addition, we worked with Joint Task Force North to host a coffee drop-in at the Legion (Branch 168). At both events, we had the opportunity to connect with a broad range of community members and showcase some of our mental health resources.

We continued to build our relationships with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), connecting with Support for Operational Stress Injury (SOSI) and other RCMP representatives at the Iqaluit detachment. We learned more about the realities of policing in the region and shared our resources that could support the RCMP community.

Finally, we met with organizations that provide mental health supports to the community, including a community-based mental health provider and representatives from the Government of Nunavut, which operates three mental health sites in the territory. We discovered that a new recovery and treatment centre is under construction in Iqaluit, due for completion in 2025. This facility, a partnership between the Government of Nunavut and the Government of Canada, will be Inuit-run and will provide culturally safe and holistic care for individuals struggling with substance use health. The facility will offer land-based healing programs, Family services and daycare. We also learned of ongoing efforts to recruit and train Inuk service providers.

We hope to continue to invest in building relationships in northern communities and have plans to travel to Yellowknife in 2025. As a result of this visit, we are translating a few key resources into Inuktitut, including resources on coping with a posttraumatic stress injury (PTSI) and two resources for children and youth. We look forward to continuing to build our relationships with the Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP Veteran and Family community in the North!

EVENTS AND TRAINING

“It’s important to talk about the needs and experiences of Families of Veterans because it is them who are at the heart of the support system of Canadian Veterans.”

— Hélène Le Scelleur, Canadian Armed Forces Veteran

January 23 – 24, 2025 — Veteran Family Summit

Last chance to register for the Veteran Family Summit and get full access to all recordings, virtual resource booths, a library of information and much more — even after the event has come to a close. The Veteran Family Summit was created to acknowledge, support and provide resources specific to the unique needs of Canadian Veteran Families — right from the comfort of their own home or from any location. You can join any of the live presentations that are of interest to you and check out the rest of the summit when it’s convenient.

We hope to see you there!

TRAINING FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

Managing problematic anger

A self-paced virtual training course designed to equip licensed service providers with the skills to assess and treat problematic anger in military and Veteran populations is available in English and French.

SELF-PACED TRAINING

FEATURED RESOURCE

Neurofeedback therapy: A promising treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder

A growing body of evidence shows that neurofeedback therapy can help to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health conditions. Neurofeedback trains people to self-regulate areas of the brain that may not be functioning well due to trauma. In a recent clinical trial, neurofeedback was shown to significantly reduce participants’ PTSD symptoms, along with being well-tolerated. Of note, at the end of the study, more than 60% of participants no longer met the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis.

Explore our webpage to learn more about what neurofeedback is and how it works, as well as to read about recent research on its effectiveness as a treatment for PTSD.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Women Veterans: Participate in important studies on unmet health care needs and transition

We know that women Veterans’ experiences in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are often different from that of their male counterparts. This is why the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families is conducting two research studies specific to the needs and experiences of women Veterans.

• Examining the association between unmet health and well-being needs and mental health for women Veterans of the CAF and RCMP

• Women’s well-being in post-service life: Evaluating the psychological, social, and systemic factors associated with transition from the Canadian military

Share your experiences by completing the online surveys. Participation is voluntary and will take 45 to 90 minutes of your time.

If you would like to support in other ways, we encourage you to share this information with your network to get the word out.

Exploring the impact of biological sex on intrinsic connectivity networks in PTSD: A data-driven approach

Read a newly published manuscript examining how sex as a biological variable influences the development and expression of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms differently in male and female brains. The study, titled Exploring the impact of biological sex on intrinsic connectivity networks in PTSD: A data-driven approach, was co-authored by Fardous Hosseiny, President and CEO of the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, and Andrew Nicholson, Director of Clinical Research at the Atlas Institute

This study highlighted insights on the impact of biological sex on PTSD-related brain network alterations using machine learning methods. These discoveries contribute to further defining neurobiological markers of PTSD among females and males and may offer guidance for differential sex-related treatment needs.

Congratulations to the authors on this important publication!

Follow us on social media