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Transition Group (Previously JPSU and DCSM)

old medic

Army.ca Veteran
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I saw this article earlier today on the CTV website.  A short item from The Canadian Press.
Below that, I put up a copy of the DND press release that the article draws from.

I will comment in depth on the them later. I think several items hidden in these articles are
worthy of closer examination. Besides the addition of yet another office, the previous promises to
"hire an additional 218 mental health professionals by the end of March 2009"
(several references in the December 2008 ombudsmen report Pages 2,15,22 and 28- http://www.ombudsman.forces.gc.ca/rep-rap/sr-rs/osi-tso-3/doc/osi-tso-3-eng.pdf  )
now seems to be reduced to 117 new Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions. That is alot less than promised when you knock the administrative staff off that 117 for 8 offices and an Ottawa HQ.



DND to open eight support centres across Canada
Mon. Mar. 2 2009
The Canadian Press
copy at : http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090302/DND_supportcentres_090302/20090302?hub=Canada

HALIFAX -- The Canadian government is creating a national network of support centres to help care for ill and injured armed forces personnel, their families, former members and the families of the deceased.

Eight Integrated Personnel Support Centres will be staffed in every region of the country over the next few months to oversee case management and program delivery, Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced Monday.

"Whether returning to military life or exploring a new civilian career these members and their families will receive the assistance they need," said MacKay.

The centres will operate under a single Canadian Forces unit based in Ottawa co-ordinating casualty report and case management programs and planning and managing return to work programs.

Veteran's Affairs Minister Greg Thompson said the partnership with DND will provide veterans and their families with more seamless service.

"They will improve existing services by aligning progress on a member's file with one defined set of priorities," he said.

The centres will be located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Shilo, Man., Toronto, Petawawa, Ont., Valcartier, Que,. Gagetown, N.B., and Halifax.

The Joint Personnel Support Unit
BG–09.006 - March 2, 2009
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/view-news-afficher-nouvelles-eng.asp?id=2880

In the provision of care and support to its ill and injured personnel, the Canadian Forces (CF) are far ahead of where they were ten years ago. As part of an ongoing process to improve the level of services, the CF has established a network of eight support centres to meet the needs of ill and injured personnel from the Navy, Army and Air Force, providing them with an integrated “one-stop service.”  The support centres, known as Integrated Personnel Support Centres (IPSCs), operate under the Joint Personnel Support Unit (JPSU), which is headquartered in Ottawa.

The mandate of the JPSU is to respond to requests for support and report to the chain of command on issues of concern raised by ill and injured CF personnel. The JPSU accomplishes the following:

    * It improves the quality of care and services provided to ill and injured CF personnel.
    * It ensures that military personnel have access to the same high standard of care and support across the country.
    * It reduces the potential for gaps, overlaps and confusion, ensuring that no CF member “falls through the cracks.”
    * As military personnel move frequently, the JPSU concept recognizes that people heal better and faster when they are close to their family and their social support network.
    * The JPSU gives military personnel a new mission – to heal (recover), to regain their strength (rehabilitate) and to choose their best way forward (reintegrate).

The principal aim of this initiative is to ensure that all Regular Force and Reserve Force personnel and their families are provided an equitable level of care and support regardless of environment or location, through centralized command and control.

Services

The JPSU provides a CF/VAC integrated “one-stop service” for ill and injured CF personnel and their families. It supports currently serving and releasing CF personnel, both Regular Force and Reserve Force. It caters to both referrals and walk-in clients, to long-term injured personnel and to members considering retirement. It responds to queries from family members regarding support services and programs for ill and injured personnel, and provides referrals as appropriate.

The services made available through the JPSU include the following:

    * Return to Work (RTW) Program coordination;
    * Casualty tracking;
    * Casualty administrative support and advocacy;
    * CF Case Management;
    * Service Income Security Insurance Plan (SISIP) financial services;
    * Liaison with Military Family Resource Centres, local base support representatives and local unit Commanding Officers; and
    * VAC client and transition services.

The JPSU improves on earlier initiatives in several key ways. It provides one-stop access to services and benefits, simplifying the process for clients seeking assistance. It reduces the potential for gaps and overlaps, and the potential for confusion among service providers. VAC staff become engaged earlier in a releasing member’s transition process. Shared standards and guidelines lead to care and support which is consistent across departments (DND/CF and VAC); environments (Army, Navy, Air Force); components (Regular Force and Reserve Force); bases, wings and units; and the country.

Structure

The JPSU is the central military unit to which a number of Integrated Personnel Support Centres (IPSCs) belong. The IPSCs will be located as follows:

    * Vancouver, British Columbia;
    * Edmonton, Alberta;
    * Shilo, Manitoba;
    * Toronto, Ontario;
    * Petawawa, Ontario;
    * Valcartier, Québec;
    * Gagetown, New Brunswick; and
    * Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Locations will open over the coming months. The individual IPSCs will be structured and staffed based on the size and relative needs of the population they serve. Approximately 117 new Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions will be filled across Canada.

A Realignment of Resources

The delivery of casualty support services at the base, wing and formation level has been occurring for as long as the CF has been training and employing members and sending them into operational theatres and special duty operations. On the national level, new initiatives were launched in 1998 and again in 2007. While filling gaps in service, however, these did not comprehensively address the needs of the CF. In 2008, the Chief of Military Personnel (CMP) recommended the stand-up of casualty support units which would provide a consistent level of care for all CF personnel. The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) accepted this recommendation, and announced the intent to further enhance casualty support by establishing centrally managed units across the country.

Leadership recognized that the earlier system of care management was complex, and that simplifying it would benefit personnel in need. The JPSU provides CF personnel and their families with coordinated, seamless and integrated care when illnesses or injuries occur, and through the stages of recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration into military or civilian life and employment
.

 
I know that there are members who have and have not heard of the JPSU or just do not know how to get into contact them. This will help members get in contact and can also raise awareness for members on this forum about the resources that the JPSU can provide.

http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/jpsu-uisp/index-eng.asp

 
With my own personal, limitted experience in the military, I would say that the JPSU is one of the best things to happen to the CF in the last 10years. It is aimed to help soldiers and does so in a responsible way. However, that is an opinion derived from my experience with JPSU-Pacific (Vancouver) and JPSU-West (Edmonton)
 
I'm posted to my local JPSU awaiting 3(b).  Today they came out a form that we must have filled in by any health care provider, CF or Civ that we visit to "prove" that we were there.  Is this SOP or just something someone  came up with ??

I do feel that it can breech medical privacy in some cases.

Thanks
 
You mean just like when you go to a CF MIR they give you a chit to say you where there? I've never had anything on a medical chit that breached privacy by stating conditions or reasons why I was there, just MELs and a time to start/end. Is the form asking specifics on why you're visiting subj doctor?
 
bigcletus said:
I'm posted to my local JPSU awaiting 3(b).  Today they came out a form that we must have filled in by any health care provider, CF or Civ that we visit to "prove" that we were there.  Is this SOP or just something someone  came up with ??

I do feel that it can breech medical privacy in some cases.

Thanks

All units ask for the same; as your "Chit" only says you attended, not what for, therefore no breach of privacy.

Don't blame the unit, blame those that abused the system.

dileas

tess
 
To add further to this, remember your CoC is also entitled to know to what extent you are employable. They may not need to know you have XXX disease or a broken YYYY, but they are allowed to know things like can/can not walk, with/out kit, how much, hours to work, etc, etc.
 
When I was at the IPSC , not the JPSU, nor are you, I saw many folks just leave or not even come in. How hard is it to call or show up to say hi and see ya next week? It's those folks who ruined it. When one spends a better part of the morning trying to track down these morons, it doesn't take long to just bring back the rules. Yes, you are on the way out and probably expect to be treated differently than the folks in the old unit but in all honestly, how hard is it getting a chit or something from the civie medical folks to prove you were where you said you were?

JPSU is the HQ that controls several IPSCs. Where I was, JPSU Edmonton also has an IPSC, they just share the same bldg.
 
I believe you are referring to the IPSC Support Platoon which is the military component there to maintain control and discipline as if you were in any other unit.  Troops posed to IPSC's are expected to go on RTW within MEL's and from what I've seen,  can be just about anything under the sun.  If there's been "abuse of the system" by missed medical appts or creating appts that don't exist (med appts are a temporary way out of RTW commitment),  you can bet that the reaction of the CoC from that IPSC will take action to solicit the correct behaviour from the soldiers posted to it.  It's too bad that everyone pays for the actions of others but I don't see much they could do without attending the appts with them.

There may also be a need to casualty track the amount of out sourcing for statistical purposes.  There is alot of statistical analysis in military casualties.  If all it asks is for is attendance,  that is not a breach of confidentiality as that would disclose medical details of your condition.  There is many doctors that would participate in that.
 
It's an accountability issue to ensure you are where you're supposed to be. Most MIR's will provide a chit stating the date and time you were at the MIR. Even though you are being released the CF still has to account for where you are during the day. We can't stay at home and receive a cheuqe, although it would be nice. The chit thing has always been mandatory not just at IPSC's, each unit is different as to how particular they are to seeing the chit. Currently where I am working I just let my immediate supervisor know when my appointment is and he is fine with that.  However I am sure if there was some suspicion of abuse he would want to see a chit.
I suspect that when I am posted to JPSU the IPSC will want to see a chit for any appointments I have as I will not have worked there for very long and they don't really know me.
There is no privacy issue. The chit just states you were at the appointment from time A to time B with your name on it to prove you were there.
 
This article is reproduced without comment (because I don't know enough about the JPSU system, but others here on Army.ca, do) under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Canada+broken+soldiers+Canada+broken+system/8743334/story.html
ottawacitizen.gif

Canada’s broken soldiers, Canada’s broken system
A much-admired military unit that has helped many injured and mentally ill Canadian veterans has deteriorated so badly it’s now in crisis itself. Former staff, clients and critics tell Chris Cobb the government and military brass are not providing resources to keep up with demand that is only likely to increase.

BY CHRIS COBB, OTTAWA CITIZEN

AUGUST 2, 2013

The Canadian military created its Joint Personnel Support Unit almost five years ago to give hope and help to the flood of physically and mentally injured soldiers coming home from Afghanistan and those still damaged from previous missions. Eight regional JPSUs would oversee 24 troop support centres and dozens of smaller satellite facilities scattered across the country. The ill and injured would be assigned to Support Platoons.

The 24 new units, or Integrated Personnel Support Centres, would be holistic and offer well-staffed programs that would support and enable troops posted into the unit to get proper medical mental health treatment and the chance to resume their careers or, more likely, be “transitioned out” into the civilian world with sellable skills and jobs to go to.

It was all very appealing to Barry Westholm, a veteran with three decades of tough soldiering under his belt and the emotional scars to show for it.

8743338.jpg

Barry Westholm was a senior member of the Joint Personnel Support Unit which was created to help ill and
injured military members. Westholm quit in protest of the lack of resources being provided.
Photograph by: Chris Mikula , Ottawa Citizen


Westholm was a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment when it was disbanded in 1995 and had also served in Cambodia, Syria and Haiti. He was back at CFB Petawawa as a master warrant officer in 2007 when he began seeing young soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

“They had all aged from when I’d last seen them,” he recalls, “and a lot of them were coming back with injuries. It wasn’t uncommon for me to have them crying at my desk. There was no system to support them.”

Westholm joined the JPSU system in February 2009 as the first Regional Sergeant Major and senior non-commissioned officer of the vast Eastern Ontario Region that includes Petawawa, Ottawa, Kingston, Trenton and North Bay.

Under a previous system, barely one per cent of troops made it back to work in the military but JPSU and its network of support centres was initially able to push that to almost 20 per cent.

“It’s been a fantastic achievement,” adds Westholm, “but equally important is how we’ve transitioned some people for the civilian environment as opposed to the previous ‘goodbye, it’s been nice to know you.’

“People had a place to go where they would be treated with respect and cared for,” he says. “They get training, take courses and even work part time in the civilian environment to get used to the rhythm. So they leave with a useful tool box.”

But increased demand, burned out and departed staff and lack of resources means that many of the support units have gone from good to bad to worse to dysfunctional, according to Westholm and several other serving and retired Canadian Forces members. Documents obtained by the Citizen confirm their assessment.

The trend, they say, is a reflection of the federal government’s lack of commitment and a persistent refusal by the upper crust of Canada’s military to provide the resources and innovation necessary to cope with an overwhelming demand that only seems likely to increase as military personnel who served in Afghanistan emerge from the incubation period that typically precedes mental breakdown — and countless others who will no longer be able to hide the mental illnesses they fear will meet a prevalent stigma and end their military careers.

Frustrated at the persistent refusals from superiors for extra help, 50-year-old Westholm quit his job earlier this year and circulated his two-page resignation letter to a range of influential government and military people, hoping for a reaction that never came.

“I couldn’t collect a paycheque to be part of that anymore,” says Westholm, who says he jumped before he was pushed after being told that JPSU brass wasn’t interested in reading any more memos begging for increased resources.

“We were overwhelmed and had senior medical staff telling us that a wave (of mental illness) was coming. So I said we have to get busy to prepare for these troops. They said ‘no way.’ I thought that if I cc’d enough people someone would say ‘hey, what’s going on?’”

Retired Brigadier-general Joe Sharpe, a respected voice on military mental health, says Westholm’s concerns are well-founded.

“I maintain a lot of contact with soldiers across the country and I see us falling back in the trap where the public perception comes first and the soldiers come second,” he says. “In the early 1990s we went through budget cuts and were abandoning soldiers right left and centre. Senior leadership today is focused on resources, media and public perceptions. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Cpl. Glen Kirkland, a severely injured Afghanistan veteran who testified at a parliamentary committee hearing in June about his struggle to get adequate coverage for his ongoing medical treatment, is officially assigned to JPSU at CFB Shilo, Manitoba — a unit he says is hopelessly failing its ill and injured.

“It’s a coffee shop and a ridiculous waste of manpower,” he says. “I’m considered one of their bad soldiers because when I got to JPSU, I’m like ‘I can’t sit here and rot, I need to do something with my life.’ I went out and got a university education and got a trade.

“They should be teaching guys to get out of the system and not be patrons at a coffee shop,” he adds. “They don’t need sergeants and warrants, they need baristas.”

The JPSU needs a different structure with more committed and qualified staff, says Kirkland, who has been building a successful career as a real estate agent while awaiting his release.

“Something needs to change because guys are going there to rot,” he says, “The sergeants and warrants charged with running the system have done their 30 years. They aren’t necessarily suited to the job. You ask them ‘do you like your job’ and they’ll say ‘no, I don’t like my job because I have to deal with whiny soldiers all day.

“The army doesn’t look after its injured soldiers,” he says. “If I had worked at Walmart I would have been looked after better.

Nadia Pardy, who was posted into the JPSU system at Petawawa because of physical injury when JPSU was in its infancy, says she fared well at a time when the unit was fully functioning.

“When you spend the largest part of your adult life in the forces it becomes a part of who you are,” she says. “Many of us do not know how to go forward and start over when it was never in our original plans. Injured and disabled soldiers, sailors and airmen need support in finding a purpose and gainful employment outside the Canadian Armed Forces. I do not see how they can downsize the support when the number of members needing the support is steadily increasing.”

The JPSU decline also contravenes the federal government and DND’s much touted “Taking Care of Our Own” policy signed last year by former Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk.

According to DND, support units across Canada are currently “offering direct assistance” through JPSU to 5,418 ill and injured members and 533 families of soldiers killed while on duty.

But the Eastern Ontario Region support system is in trouble — a situation flagged to Westholm in an email two years ago from a Kingston colleague.

“I am currently unable to stay ahead of the curve and am not able to complete the bulk of the tasks that are expected of me,” said the colleague. “I find my involvement with our most severe cases takes a huge chunk of my time.”

The situation in Kingston has deteriorated since then, says Westholm, who keeps in regular touch with his former JPSU colleagues across the region.

“There are 82 people posted to the Support Platoon in Kingston and only one military JPSU person there to take care of them,” he says.

He has had similar appeals for help from Ottawa and Petawawa where unit brass have admitted that the current system is unworkable and ordered fast-track structural changes.

In an email written three weeks ago, Petawawa’s Integrated Personnel Support Centre (IPSC) commander Capt. Kevin Lamorie told his staff that “due to current manning levels” the ill and injured will not be assigned to a specific commander but to whomever is available, and more administrative work will be done by the unit’s client service representatives, whose primary tasks since the system’s inception has been helping the injured troops. In his email, obtained by the Citizen, Lamorie warns that the measures will be in place until as least September and thanks staff for their patience “during this extremely trying time for the IPSC.”

The Petawawa system, equipped to cope with 30 ill and injured, are currently dealing with almost 200, says Westholm.

“In Petawawa they are in 100 per cent scramble mode trying to keep it together,” says Westholm. “It’s a desperate situation.”

Jan Stroud, a clinical social worker who treated many Afghan veterans at CFB Petawawa before leaving last year, says the new directive is a clear signal that the situation at the base support unit is dire.

“It tells me they’re not even hiding any more how serious it is,” she says. “Not only are soldiers not going to get what they need but they are going to be put in a queue and it will be by gosh or by golly what’s going to happen to them.”

Client service representatives — former dealing directly with ill and injured troops at Petawawa — are becoming administration clerks, she adds.

“They are exceptional people and would go to unbelievable lengths to get soldiers what they need. They provided a safe haven for soldiers where they could talk about their problems and challenges.”

The support unit at CFB Petawawa began seeing young Afghanistan war veterans of various ranks and occupations — medics, padres, military police officers, mechanics and other support trades ­— who had seen the violent deaths of colleagues or dealt with the aftermath.

“There were people who had to clean out the vehicles soldiers had died in,” says Westholm. “Or the post office clerks who had to intercept the mail going to the deceased or send effects of the deceased back home. Yesterday he or she had given you a parcel to mail and you were talking to them at your wicket and today they’re gone and you’re holding their stuff in your hands. It would have an effect on anyone.”

And those who experienced combat are often doubly afflicted.

“If you have a traumatic physical injury you could be mentally injured too,” he says.

“The medical staff doesn’t tell JPSU what the medical issue is because of privacy. They just tell you what a person can’t do. So if you’re told a person can’t bear to look at military vehicles you know it’s a mental issue.”

The military’s Director of Casualty Support Management, Colonel Gerard Blais, agreed to an interview with the Citizen but it was cancelled three hours before it was due to take place. Blais has headed the JPSU system since its inception.

In a written response issued through a public affairs spokesman, Blais described staffing at Joint Personnel Support Units as “adequate” but “challenging in the current environment” due to a government-imposed hiring freeze.

“A number of mechanisms to address the issue of staffing these positions are currently being examined,” said the spokesman, who offered no specifics.

Westholm says it makes no economic sense for the government to squeeze JPSU: “If it’s money you’re worried about these people leaving with jobs are not on the dole, not in the health care system and not alcoholics, drunk on the side of the road. They are making a wage and paying taxes.”

The current operating budget for the support system is $19.4 million, roughly the same as last year.

“The intent is right but the execution is terrible,” says a serving soldier posted into a support unit in another part of Ontario, who spoke on condition the Citizen didn’t use his name.

“I just go into a little crack and live there. We’re scattered all over and never line up together. I’ve never had a review of any sort. I check in once or twice a week to give a wave and show I’m still alive and that’s it.

There is no close monitoring. And if anybody needs close monitoring, it’s the guys here.

“There is no real sense of leadership or direction,” adds the soldier. “It’s become a waiting room to get out of the military and isn’t a great place to be. It’s definitely understaffed, with one person in charge of 30 or 40 people.”

A soldier working on JPSU staff at another Ontario base says a slew of his colleagues are burned out or leaving to continue to collect their pensions, which they can’t do if they stay working in the military, according to new federal Treasury Board rules.

“We’re losing a lot of good people and a lot of corporate knowledge,” says the soldier who asked that neither his name nor base be published. “The staff is working 16-hour days six days a week. If JPSU were 100 per cent resourced it would be excellent but right now it isn’t working.

“This unit was stood up to take stigma away from the ill and injured,” he adds, “but now we’re almost back where we started.”

Amid stories of staff burning out and developing their own health issues — including at least one who suffered an emotional collapse and became a JPSU client — Westholm wrote his two-page resignation letter.

“JPSU is the lowest priority,” says Sharpe, who works closely on military mental health issues with Senator Romeo Dallaire.

“I worry about it as a citizen and as a veteran,” he says. “I worry about what some of the young guys will end up doing if you create an environment where the ill and injured feel they can’t make their voices heard. And I know dozens of them.

“What we need is an environment where veterans who have a mental injury or a leg blown off by an IED have an entitlement, not a need to go begging,” he added.

JPSU’s decline is a failure of leadership, says Sharpe.

“The obligation is on the government — an implied covenant that if you’re injured you’ll be taken care of.”

Westholm agrees.

“We are helping the people who paid the price,” he says. “We asked them to go to war and they went. They got beat up over there and now they want to get better. But now we’ve set a trap for them: We’re saying ‘come on, it’s here’ but it’s not.”

Westholm Resignation
 
I know Barry. He's a good man.

Essentially, what is said is true. The JPSU was started with the best of intentions, however some people never really bought into it.
In some instances the JPSU was seen as a dumping ground for undesirable troops who had histories of disciplinary or administrative problems.
It took over six months for a CANFORGEN to be published on how to post a troop to the JPSU, where it should have taken about a week, thanks to the various levels of bureaucracies that had to agree and and their  :2c:.

I am sure there are a few more horror stories.
 
Jim Seggie said:
I know Barry. He's a good man.
...

And Nadia is also a friend of mine.  It's really frustrating me to see what they both have to say in this article as I'd take their word as "bang on" any day.

This all fucking sucks; it needs to get fixed now.

 
Having been in embedded in ono of the first IPSCs at it's inception 5 years ago, and then having 3 in my AOR, I can say that the article is spot on.

A shame really, but that is what you get when the age old Nepotism, Lack of caring, no leadership support, rules after rules that tie you down rather than help.....I can just go on.....have eroded the fundamental concept of the JPSU.  It is also bleeding into other programs in DCSM, but I digress.

dileas

tess
 
the 48th regulator said:
Having been in embedded in ono of the first IPSCs at it's inception 5 years ago, and then having 3 in my AOR, I can say that the article is spot on.

A shame really, but that is what you get when the age old Nepotism, Lack of caring, no leadership support, rules after rules that tie you down rather than help.....I can just go on.....have eroded the fundamental concept of the JPSU.  It is also bleeding into other programs in DCSM, but I digress.

dileas

tess

It's despicable how we were told time after time that there were no resources available beyond what we had already, some felt that we were too well funded, some viewed this as "an Army problem" and others dismissed it outright  as a place for malingerers and whiners.

Yet we now have pips and crowns.......
 
Jim Seggie said:
It's despicable how we were told time after time that there were no resources available beyond what we had already, some felt that we were too well funded, some viewed this as "an Army problem" and others dismissed it outright  as a place for malingerers and whiners.

Yet we now have pips and crowns.......

Surely the return of pips and crowns will cure all the ills and inspire our poor suffering comrades to make a full recovery.


:sarcasm:
 
Jim Seggie said:
...

Yet we now have pips and crowns.......

At the behest of the government; the Army rejected pips and crowns last year.

Perhaps the politicians can ante up some gonads and start looking after the troops instead of merely talking about doing such.
 
ArmyVern said:
At the behest of the government; the Army rejected pips and crowns last year.

Perhaps the politicians can ante up some gonads and start looking after the troops instead of merely talking about doing such.

Well said, mon ami.
 
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