In this edition
- Programs and services
- Get ready for coming changes to Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) group health insurance
- Breaking the Cycle helps children understand parents’ PTSD
- Harness healthy habits with LifeSpeak
- Season two of The Most Painful Podcast has dropped
- Veteran stories
- Remembering Ethelbert “Curley” Christian
- Jeff Casey: Sharing lessons learned
- Commemoration
- February is Black History Month
- Invictus Games returning to Canada in 2025
- Will you be our Valentine?
- Join us for Winterlude in the National Capital Region
- Commemoration calendar
- Engagement
- You can contribute to research on intimate partner violence
- Help evaluate online resources for service providers on family violence
- Sex and Gender Equality Veterans Forum
Programs and services
Get ready for coming changes to Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) group health insurance
The Government of Canada is transitioning the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) administrator from SunLife to the Canada Life Assurance Company, effective 1 July 2023. You should continue to send claims to SunLife until then, but you can start to take steps now to ensure a smooth transition.
What should you do?
- If you are a plan member now, review and update your personal information with SunLife. This will ensure Canada Life has your information to send you a new enrolment package.
- Sign in or register at PSHCP Member Services and select Updating your positive enrolment information. If you prefer paper, call SunLife at 1-888-757-7427 (toll-free in North America).
- In March 2023, keep an eye out for an enrolment package from Canada Life. You must submit your positive enrolment and pre-authorized debit (banking) information to make sure your coverage continues.
This change will have no impact on negotiated benefits for you and your family, nor to the cost of the PSHCP premiums. This simply changes which company processes your claims.
For more information, visit Government of Canada: Pension and benefits.
Breaking the Cycle helps children understand parents’ PTSD
If you or someone you know lives with PTSD and would like support, Can Praxis’ Breaking the Cycle Family Program may be just what you need.
Here is a deeper look at the work they are doing.
The Can Praxis Breaking the Cycle program provides families with the communication tools they need to talk about PTSD and improve family functioning. It provides children of Veterans with an operational stress injury with education and tools to understand their parent’s injury.
The program teaches youth mindfulness, including states of mind and emotion, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and how to communicate effectively to validate emotions and have healthy conversations within the family. The program helps children understand when their injured parent is having a bad day, and that it is not their fault.
The educational portion of the program teaches children about boundaries and how they can help to establish them in the home. Learning in the classroom will be augmented by exercises with horses that reinforce the taught skills, including mindfulness, problem solving, communication and care for the horses.
The knowledge children gain allows them to safely engage with their parent on a bad day to express their own fear or concern without blaming themselves. This will break the cycle that trauma can create within families, providing a healthier future for those children, just as the existing adult program provides a healthier future for their parents.
Can Praxis’ original programming has 93 percent of participants in adult (couples) sessions indicating that the program is still helping them, up to 40 months later. The children's program will equip the whole family with similar tools to manage and see the same kind of long-term improvement in their relationship with their parents. The family program adapts material from the adult program for children. Adaptations include a colouring book for younger children as printed material, and the use of engaging, multimedia scenarios and resources.
Can Praxis is one of the 2021–2022 Veteran and Family Well-Being Fund recipients. For more information, visit the Can Praxis website.
Harness healthy habits with LifeSpeak
The LifeSpeak Winter Awareness Campaign, Harnessing Healthy Habits, aims to guide you toward thinking and feeling your best with a series of videos and articles. You can read how to work microbreaks into your day, and watch how to build better sleep, eating and strength routines.
Visit the resources page until February 24 by logging in to LifeSpeak from any computer or mobile device with user access ID: canada.
Season two of The Most Painful Podcast has dropped
Season two of the Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence’s The Most Painful Podcast has officially launched! This time around, they have even more episodes with new guests and engaging topics.
Episode one of season two features professional hockey player Cameron Gaunce, speaking about the similarities between athlete and military identity. Visit The Most Painful Podcast to listen to the latest episodes.
Stay tuned for new French podcast episodes from the CPCOE with Dr. Major (retired) Luc J. Hébert in spring 2023.
Veteran stories
Remembering Ethelbert “Curley” Christian
On 9 April 1917, Christian was serving with the 78th Canadian Infantry Battalion during the Battle of Vimy Ridge when heavy artillery fire buried him in a trench. He was trapped for two days. Found barely alive, Christian cheated death again when two of his stretcher bearers were killed by enemy fire while carrying him from the battlefield.
Christian survived but unfortunately, due to gangrene, both arms and legs had to be amputated. His positive demeanor remained, however, and after returning to Canada he married a volunteer aide who worked at the Toronto hospital where he was recuperating.
Christian received artificial limbs and lived a long and active life until his death in 1954.
Active in Veteran’s causes, he also inspired the development of the Attendance Allowance.
Discover more inspiring stories, like those of the Carty Brothers, Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired) Robert Maxwell and Sergeant (Retired) Joan Buchanan on our website, and join the conversation on social using #BlackHistoryMonth.
Do you have a story to share about experience in the Canadian Armed Forces? Tell us about it by email.
Jeff Casey: Sharing lessons learned
In his 19-year Navy career, Jeff Casey learned a lot about the abilities of CAF members. He now uses what he learned to help other Vets make the transition to life after service.
Born the youngest of four children in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Jeff Casey describes himself as an outdoors person. “I’ve been hunting and fishing since I was knee-high to a grasshopper,” he says.
He joined the Army Cadets while in high school. He loved the camaraderie and the outdoor activities, but a trip to a military base left a deep impression. “We got to go to Gagetown and see all the cool stuff,” he says. “I loved seeing the Leopard 2 tanks. I wanted to drive one since I was 14.”
Thank you to all those who participated in Operation RECUPERATION. Twenty-five years later, we remember your determination and support when your fellow Canadians needed you.
Commemoration
February is Black History Month
Black Canadians have proudly served in uniform for more than 200 years.
Many overcame barriers to enlist and faced discrimination in the ranks. Yet they still put their lives on the line for Canada.
This month and all year long, we honour their sacrifices.
Invictus Games returning to Canada in 2025
We’re two years from the Invictus Games’ return to Canada!
In 2025, Vancouver-Whistler will host the first winter hybrid edition of the Invictus Games. For the first time, the Invictus Games will include adaptive winter sports like alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, skeleton sliding and curling.
Canada will welcome more than 500 competitors from 20 countries to participate in the most innovative and accessible Games to date.
In the meantime, Team Canada is preparing for the 2023 Invictus Games, scheduled for September in Düsseldorf, Germany. The team will participate in two separate training camps leading up to the Games: one this month in Victoria, the other later this spring in Winnipeg.
Be sure to keep a close eye on our social media channels (along with Soldier On) for highlights from the training camps and the announcement of Team Canada 2023.
More to come from Germany later this year – and we can’t wait to welcome competitors from around the world to Canada in 2025!
Team Canada from the Invictus Games 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo provided by Solider On.
Will you be our Valentine?
Every year, for more than 25 years, children and adults have sent in thousands of handmade Valentines for Canada’s Veterans. From art to poems, the message is always the same—thank you!
We’ve hand-picked some just for you!
Join us for Winterlude in the National Capital Region
Come visit our exhibit during Ottawa’s Winterlude festivities. You can learn about the impact of the Ice Storm of 1998 and the military’s support in the recovery efforts through Operation Recuperation.
You’ll find our display near the National War Memorial, at the corner of Elgin Street and Wellington Avenue from February 3 to 20.
Can’t make it to Ottawa? You can see the exhibit from the comfort and warmth of home through our social media.
Commemoration calendar
- January 31:
- 100th anniversary of the Canadian Naval Reserve
- February:
- Black History Month
- February 1:
- The Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force unified to form the Canadian Armed Forces, 1968
- February 3:
- The Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force (Women’s Division), 1942
- February 8:
- Operation VERITABLE began, with Canadian troops joining the Allied offensive into western Germany, 1945
- February 15:
- National Flag of Canada Day
- February 18:
- The South African War’s Battle of Paardeberg began, 1900
- February 28:
- Gulf War ends, 1991
- March 8:
- International Women’s Day
- March 12:
- Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan came to an end, 2014
- March 15:
- First Canadian UN peacekeepers arrived in Cyprus, 1964
- March 20:
- Preliminary bombardment of German positions at Vimy Ridge was intensified, 1917
- March 24:
- CF-18 warplanes launched their first airstrikes in Kosovo, 1999
- March 31:
- British Commonwealth Air Training Plan came to an end during the Second World War, 1945
Engagement
You can contribute to research on intimate partner violence
The Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families is seeking participants for a study it is conducting, with the Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, on intimate partner violence among Veterans and their partners.
The Atlas Institute provides access to information, research, tools and expertise on post-traumatic stress disorder and related mental health conditions.
The study will identify ways to improve prevention programs and access to resources.
If you would like to take part, please complete this online form, which has more details about the study.
Help evaluate online resources for service providers on family violence
The Atlas Institute is also working with researchers at McMaster University to evaluate a project to study training approaches for service providers using violence, evidence, guidance, and action (VEGA) tools. VEGA resources provide guidance that can help social service providers recognize and respond to family violence among Veterans and their families.
If you are a service provider interested in participating in the study, you can contact the research team by email, or call 905-525-9140, ext. 20064. Please let your health and social service providers who work with Veterans and their families know about the study.
If you are currently in an unsafe situation, you can get free, psychological support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from the VAC Assistance Service. Call 1-800-268-7708, use the chat service, or, for TDD/TTY, contact 1-800-567-5803. Other resources include Stop Family Violence and ShelterSafe.ca.
Reminder: 2023 Forum for Women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans begins February 9
The 2023 Annual Forum for Women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans will explore how more inclusive policy, programs and services at Veterans Affairs Canada could better address the needs of women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans.
This forum will elevate the voices and lived experiences of women and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans, bringing them together with subject matter experts, researchers and stakeholders to discuss systemic inequities disproportionately impacting these groups.
The Forum will consist of two components: an open, virtual session on 9 February 2023 and an in-person/hybrid session by invitation on 16 February 2023.
You can now register for the forum. For questions, please reach out to us by email.
Do you know other Veterans, family members or others who would benefit from the information in this newsletter? Feel free to share it with them.