Welcome to the first issue of Atlas Navigator!

Introducing the inaugural issue of Atlas Navigator, the new monthly newsletter for the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families.

Each issue will feature news and information for Veterans, Families and the people who work with them, including highlighted resources, recruiting studies and research updates, as well as the voices of the Veteran and Veteran Family community — all in one place.

• What’s new: Featured Atlas news, latest blog and podcast releases
• Community corner: Updates on how Atlas is engaging with the Veteran and Family community
• Events and training: Upcoming and current events, webinars and trainings offered by Atlas
• Featured resources: Fact sheets, guides, videos, infographics and other resources or tools to support Veteran and Family mental health and well-being
• Research highlights: Recruiting studies, research publications and highlights, and ways to contribute to knowledge about Veteran and Family health and well-being
• Partnership and stakeholder spotlight: News from the Atlas network, including partnerships and collaborations with peer organizations and public policy updates
• Commemorations calendar: Dates and commemorations related to Veteran and Family mental health

WHAT’S NEW

PTSD Awareness Month and Brain Injury Awareness Month

June was both PTSD Awareness Month and Brain Injury Awareness Month. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) can overlap in many ways. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) members may be more likely to be exposed to events and conditions that cause either or both. They share some of the same symptoms, and treatments that are effective for PTSD are also beneficial for those with a mild TBI. What’s more, both PTSD and TBI can have long-term impacts on health and well-being.

Learning more about PTSD and TBI can help people who are impacted better advocate for themselves, get support and treatment and improve daily quality of life.

A new suite of resources is now available to help Veterans, Families and the people who work with them better understand TBI, its impacts and how to live well with it, as well as how TBI and PTSD are interconnected.

For more information and resources, you can also visit our campaign pages for Brain Injury Awareness Month and PTSD Awareness Month.

Perspectives: A soldier’s return — Remembering Newfoundland’s lost son

The remains of an unknown soldier from Newfoundland who served in the First World War were recently brought home to rest from Beaumont-Hamel in northern France. Read a Canadian Armed Forces Veteran’s experience of being part of the repatriation ceremony, thoughts from a Newfoundlander Veteran and a reflection on the significance of the repatriation event.

New episode of Mind Beyond the Mission — Parenting with a posttraumatic stress injury

In this episode of Mind Beyond the Mission, Brian and Laryssa are joined by Tabitha Beynen, a former Air Force medic and single parent navigating the challenges of balancing personal well-being and parenting while living with a posttraumatic stress injury (PTSI). They explore:

• Managing personal well-being while caring for a child
• Healthy coping mechanisms for difficult days
• Prioritizing self-care and seeking support
• Open communication with children about mental health

COMMUNITY CORNER

Listening tour

To connect directly with Veterans and Families in the community, the Atlas Institute Lived Experience team conducts listening tours throughout each year. In June, we visited various locations in Prince Edward Island and Kingston, ON.

In Prince Edward Island, the community warmly welcomed us and we look forward to returning. Our team visited several places, including the PEI Military Family Resource Centre, the local Legion and Canada House. The overwhelming sense of community was evident, with Veterans and Family members showing support to one another even as they shared about their challenges of having little resources in their communities.

At Canadian Forces Base Kingston, the Lived Experience team attended the community’s second annual Connect-A-Thon. This year, nearly 500 members of the CFB Kingston community attended the event. The Atlas team feels honoured to have had the opportunity to foster vital connections and to be part of the work to enhance the lives of military and Veteran Families in the area.

EVENTS AND TRAINING

January 23 – 24, 2025 — Veteran Family Virtual Summit 2025

Veteran Families have their own brand of courage. The Atlas Institute’s annual Veteran Family Virtual Summit was created so Families like yours can have their experiences heard and shared.

Excited for Veteran Family Virtual Summit 2025? Save the date for January 23 – 24, 2025 and stay tuned for more updates!

You can read all the highlights from Veteran Family Summit 2024, which was a huge success with more than 600 registrations and invaluable feedback shared by participants.

TRAINING FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

October 7 – 10, 2024 — Prolonged exposure therapy training for French-speaking service providers

Enrolment is now open for a training on prolonged exposure (PE) therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), offered in French. This training is for licensed service providers working in mental health who care for Veterans and their Families in Canada.

This training includes a four-day workshop on PE therapy for PTSD, taking place October 7—10, 2024, followed by 12 weeks of expert-led group consultations. The cost is covered for eligible service providers.

Available April 29, 2024 — Trauma-exposed professionals training

Introduction to trauma-exposed professionals is a self-paced training for service providers who care for Veterans and Veteran Families, developed in collaboration with Wounded Warriors Canada.

This course focuses on caring for trauma-exposed professionals such as CAF members and public safety personnel (PSP), including information on the impacts of service on mental health and well-being and culturally specific clinical approaches. There are no required learning prerequisites.

Stay tuned — more training opportunities coming this summer

Later this month the Atlas Institute, in collaboration with Phoenix Australia, will launch a virtual training course on managing problematic anger. The course is designed to equip service providers with the skills to assess and treat problematic anger in military and Veteran populations.

This self-paced training will be offered at no cost to eligible service providers. The training is intended for licensed/registered service providers (and their trainees) working in mental health who care for Veterans or Veteran Families in Canada.

All module-based trainings offered through the Atlas Institute will be available in both English and French.

SELF-PACED TRAINING

FEATURED RESOURCES

Military sexual trauma resources for Families and friends

When someone you love is impacted by military sexual trauma, it can be hard to know what to do or say — and sometimes, to deal with how it’s affecting you too.

Military sexual trauma (MST) refers to the psychological, physical and social “wounds” that people may feel after experiencing or witnessing sexual and gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence during their service. For Family members, there are often additional challenges associated with supporting someone who has experienced MST, including the distress Family members themselves can feel knowing that their loved one has survived such a traumatic event.

This suite of resources designed specifically for Family members and friends provides information about MST and its impacts, as well as practical strategies to navigate the subject and for self-care. These resources have been co-created with Veterans impacted by MST, Family members, service providers and other subject matter experts.

Moral injury resources for Veterans, Families and public safety personnel

Moral injury refers to the psychological, social and spiritual impact of events or acts that a person performs, witnesses, or fails to prevent, which conflict with one’s own deeply held moral beliefs and values.

Research suggests that moral injuries are common among serving members and Veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, due to the conditions of deployments and likelihood of being exposed to events that can lead to moral injury. Public safety personnel may also be more likely to experience moral injury. As well, Veteran Family members can often be impacted by their loved one’s moral injury or experience it themselves.

Understanding moral injury, the types of experiences that can lead to it and how it can look and feel can help people to seek the right kinds of support. Check out these resources on moral injury in Veterans and public safety personnel:

For Veterans and Veteran Family members

A guide to moral injury for Veterans and Families: Learn more about what moral injury is, its causes and symptoms, how it is different from PTSD and what you can do if you think you or a loved one is experiencing it.

For public safety personnel

Using case studies to understand the impacts of moral injury on public safety personnel: Five case studies to illustrate how potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) can manifest within different roles in the context of public safety organizations. They aim to deepen understanding of the impacts of moral injury and help organizational leaders identify PMIEs in the workplace.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Recruiting study: Examining women Veterans’ health and well-being needs

Atlas has launched a research project to better understand if women Veterans have experienced unmet health needs during their service, what role unmet health needs play in overall mental health and well-being, how women Veterans manage their health needs, and what role organizational, behavioural and social factors play in health outcomes for women Veterans.

Participants will share their experience by responding to a questionnaire. Participation is voluntary and will take approximately 60 minutes to complete.

Recruiting study: Feasibility and effectiveness of a cognitive rehabilitation intervention for Veterans with mTBI

Atlas is supporting McMaster University in a study on mild TBIs (mTBIs) in CAF and RCMP Veterans. This four-week virtual (online) study aims to learn the best way to help Canadian Veterans with post-concussion cognitive symptoms achieve excellence in everyday thinking. We are still actively recruiting study participants.

What is an mTBI?

mTBIs can be a result of blows or jolts to the head from actions such as large-calibre weapon firing, parachute jumping, pugilism or blast exposure. Veterans with mTBIs experience a change in mental state, with symptoms including brief periods of confusion or loss of memory, slow response or loss of coordination.

If this sounds like you, we invite you to participate.

By the end of the study, we hope to better understand if remote-delivered individual therapy, developed to help aid daily challenges due to an mTBI, is more feasible than typical education material provided to those diagnosed with an mTBI or concussion.

Learn more about the implications of the study and how to participate. Visit the study page.

2024-25 collaborative research funding opportunity recipients

Congratulations to the three recipients of the 2024-25 Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families collaborative research funding opportunities! Through this funding program, researchers explore and advance key research questions related to Veteran and Veteran Family mental health and well-being.

Our funding recipients’ research projects:

Recontextualizing a moral injury intervention for Veteran Families: An exploratory study — Suzette Brémault-Phillips, PhD, Professor at the University of Alberta and Director of HiMARC (Heroes in Mind, Advocacy and Research Consortium). Dr. Brémault-Phillips will explore how Veteran Families identify and understand moral injury and consider the potential reconceptualization of the Canadian moral injury intervention, “Accepting Moral Pain and Suffering — Moral Injury (AMPS-MI).”

A rapid review and lived experience examination of RCMP retirement — Nicholas Held, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University and Assistant Scientific Director at the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Dr. Held aims to identify and synthesize any existing programs, resources and services available for RCMP Veterans and Families during the transition to post-service life and to describe how RCMP members make sense of their experience of retirement, including challenges and shifting identities.

Stories that INSPIRE: Reducing social isolation and loneliness through storytelling — Jenny Liu, PhD, Head of Scientific Development and Knowledge Mobilization at the MacDonald Franklin OSI Research Centre and Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Schulich School of Medicine, Western University. Dr. Liu aims to create educational story clips highlighting the challenge of social isolation and loneliness faced by Veterans during their transition from service. This research award was provided in collaboration with Mental Health Research Canada.

Webinar: Mental health and chronic pain: Two sides of the same coin — recording now available

Atlas recently co-hosted a webinar with the on the topic of the intersection of chronic pain and mental health in the Veteran population. The discussion shed a light on the complex relationship between these two prevalent conditions and how they often co-exist, presenting unique challenges to those who have served.

We heard from:

• Daphne McFee RCMP Sergeant and Veteran living with chronic pain and associated mental health conditions
• J Don Richardson: Medical Advisor at the Atlas Institute, psychiatrist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Western University, Medical Director of St. Joseph’s Health Care London’s Operational Stress Injury Clinic in London, Ont. and Scientific Director at the MacDonald Franklin OSI Research Centre at the Parkwood Institute

The webinar was moderated by Dr. Luc J. Hébert, fellow PT, PhD, CD, who retired as a Major from the CAF and is currently serving as a prolific researcher at the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en réadaptation et intégration sociale (CIRRIS) and as a professor at the University of Laval.

PARTNERSHIP AND STAKEHOLDER SPOTLIGHT

Atlas in-person Strategic Reference Group meeting

In May 2024, the Atlas Strategic Reference Group gathered for their first in-person meeting in Ottawa, on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. Thirteen Strategic Reference Group members attended the meeting. The meeting opened with a smudging ceremony conducted by Elder Bernard of the Eabametoong First Nation and his wife Tammy of the Nipissing First Nation, followed by opening remarks from Dr. Cyd Courchesne on behalf of Veterans Affairs Canada.

The 1.5-day meeting was an opportunity to hold key conversations with Veterans, Veteran Family members, service providers and researchers about the direction of our work in the coming years. It was also a great opportunity for the group to socialize, network and share knowledge. The meeting was focused primarily on where Atlas should focus its attention over the coming years. Strategic Reference Group members learned about some of the ongoing work at Atlas and then provided Atlas with guidance on a number of potential areas of work and how to expand its reach. One particularly interesting conversation was on boldness. Atlas heard from members, that in many ways, Atlas has been living this value over the past four years.

Thank you to all of the members who came out and shared their wisdom and insights with us. We look forward to using your guidance to keep moving our efforts forward to identify the best possible mental health care and supports for the Veteran community.

National Collaborative on PTSD and Related Mental Health Conditions

Sharing knowledge about PTSD is a crucial part of increasing understanding about and improving the mental health sector’s capacity to support Veterans and their Families. To facilitate this, Atlas and the Canadian Institute on Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT) partnered to convene the National Collaborative on PTSD with the aim of enhancing the collective understanding of PTSD and related mental health conditions and encourage collaboration among organizations that serve the military, Veteran and public safety personnel communities and their Families.

COMMEMORATIONS CALENDAR

View more commemorative dates

Follow us on social media