The Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group
Video / August 1, 2024
Transcript
Good morning, everyone. I'm Lieutenant Navy Anderson and today I'll be providing you with an overview of Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group CAF TG and the services available at the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Center CAF TC. In April 2024, CAF TG reached full operational capability. And so, what this means is that across the country, there are 27 Transition Centers that are fully equipped to support you and your transition.
So, here's a look at the agenda for today. We'll talk about a quick overview of CAF TG and CAF TG's mission, and then we'll shift our focus to the services available at a transition center and how you can work with a variety of staff and how they can support you in your transition. We will then finish off by going over some additional resources and supports that you can access throughout your transition and how they can assist you in that process.
So, here's the mission of CAF TG. It's to deliver personalized, professional and standardized casualty support and transition services to all CAF members and their families in order to enable seamless transition and enhanced well-being with special attention provided to ill and injured personnel, their families, and the families of the following. So, there are three keywords in this mission statement that I would like to expand upon a little further. The first is personalized. So personalized services means that the services are tailored to you and your family. Professional services means that there are highly trained and competent staff across each TC. They're able to provide these supports to you. And the final is standardized, meaning no matter where you go at each TC, the same services will be available to you to help support you and guide you through your transition.
So here we have a snapshot of CAF TG. So, CAF TG headquarters is located here in Ottawa. And then across the country, there are 9 Transition Units, (TUs) and 27 Transition Centres, (TCs). So, to distinguish between the two, a Transition Unit is the one that overseas and provides guidance and administrative support to the Transition Centres, whereas the TCs are where that frontline customer service day-to-day interactions occur. So, to obtain transition service support, you would reach out to the transition centre, and you would not directly contact the TU. Similarly, a member can be posted to a Transition Centre, but they are not posted directly to the TU.
Here we have the domains of well-being. You will notice on the screen that there are 7 domains of well-being including finances, social integration, life skills, housing and physical environment, culture and social environment, health and purpose. So, the goal at the Transition Centre is to ensure that you are set up for success as much as possible across each domain of well-being, to ensure that when you transition out, you are good to go as much as possible. And the staff at the TCS are there to help you in achieving this goal across each domain.
When talking about transition centers, each TC is comprised of the same distinct sections of support. You have your transition services section, support services and support platoon, and we'll cover each of these in the coming slides. But it's also important to note that the TCs work very closely with a number of service partners. So, some of these partners include, but are not limited to the Release Administrators, Veterans Affairs Canada, CFMWS (or Canadian Forces, Morale and Welfare Services), OSISS (or Operational Stress Injury Social Support), Health Services, and HOPE, which is Helping Our Peers by providing Empathy.
Each of these service partners is part of the My Transition Seminars and you will hear from each of them throughout the seminar.
OK, so we're going to talk first about transition services. So, when seeking transition services at your local TC, there are a variety of staff that you can meet with that are ready to support you in your transition. Some of them are pictured here. We have your TA or Transition Advisor. You have your RA, which is your Release Administrator. You have your VSA, which is your Veteran Service Agent, and then you have your TPSO, which is your Transition Personnel Selection Officer. The benefit of this guided team is that when a member meets with each of them, they only have to tell their story one time. And with the member's consent, they can communicate among each partner, each stakeholder, so when the member goes to see the different section, that section already knows what the member's story is and what their goals are.
So, a little bit about each of these service partners. TAs are public service employees who provide the military to civilian transition process and we're going to cover that on the next slide. So, they will meet with the member to get an idea of what their goals are and what they're looking to accomplish and how they can help them across each domain of well-being. Veteran Service Agents are employees with Veterans Affairs Canada who will meet with you to provide personalized services to explain what services and benefits VAC is able to assist you with and which you may be entitled to. Release Administrators will meet with you to provide an overview of their release administration process, and they will also address pay related queries including your final pay and leave. The Release Administrators are also the one with whom you will hand in your military service ID and be issued your Veteran's Service card. When you meet with the TPSO they have two different approaches. The first one is to explore retention options and whether or not a occupation transfer, component transfer or commissioning may be of interest or eligibility to the member. And if not and transition is the next step, then the focus shifts to their educational and vocational process and how they can assist the member in achieving their educational or vocational goals.
So, here's the MCT, the military to civilian transition process. You will notice on the screen there are 5 distinct steps in this process. The first one is the decision to transition. When you meet with your Transition Advisor, they will run you through a series of questionnaires to see if staying in the CAF is in your best interest across the demands of well-being or if maybe transitioning out will be in your best interest. Step 2 is understanding transition, and this involves exploring the transition process a little bit further and getting to know what your goals are. Step 3 is when the transition planning starts. So, your TA will work with you to develop a comprehensive plan across each domain of well-being, and they will set goals, resources, outcomes and timelines to complete a particular action that will help set you up for success. Step 4 is monitoring. So, as you're going through actioning your transition plan, you will agree with your Transition Advisor as to how frequently you may need to touch base with them. Perhaps you are set up for success and you don't have a comprehensive detailed plan at which case there may be more hands off and guided support, whereas others may require a little bit more frequency with which they touch base with their TA. So that's the agreed upon schedule at the monitoring phase and then we end off with the support continuum. So, this is when you have officially reached your release from the CAF and support continuum continues with the other close partners such as Veterans Affairs Canada or Military Family Services.
OK, so we're going to talk about the TC Services section. So, the services section provides guidance on the services and benefits that a member may be entitled to under CBI 211. So, some of these services and benefits include home and vehicle modifications, groundskeeping, claims and snow removal, just to name a few. A Service Coordinator will also assist members and in some cases family members or supervisors with providing them with the information that will enhance their recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration back to the working force or if the member faces a medical release, the information to optimize their transition upon release. In addition to the services seen on the screen, it's important to note that a member can meet with a Service Coordinator at any time. They do not have to be posted to the Transition Centre to access these services, and they can reach out at any time to see how they may be able to assist them.
OK, so the next section we're going to talk about is the support platoon. So, an ill or injured CAF member may be posted to the support platoon so they may focus on their recovery, rehabilitation, and reintegration back to duty or preparing for their transition to civilian life. So, the main goal of posting a member to the support platoon is to really give them that time to focus on themselves, seek the supports they need and attend the necessary appointments to enhance that recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration. The support platoon staff are there to be the primary point of contact for the supported members. They will answer their day-to-day questions and queries and help them with administrative support, whether that be a leave pass, PACE functions or issuing their advisory/disclosure, and/or decision messages. As you can see, primary reserve members serving on Class C extensions or reserve force compensation may also be posted or attach posted in addition to Reg Force members.
OK. So, one of the resources that are available to you when going through your transition is MTEP. Now, MTEP was stood up in April of 2022 to increase the accessibility and visibility of organizations that are out there that support the military, veteran and family community. So MTEP will liaise with external organizations to build and maintain an ecosystem of trusted organizations that spans across all domains of well-being. So, when they liaise with an organization and they determine that they do provide support to the military, veteran and family community, they're part of this ecosystem that can be accessed via the National Resource Directory. We'll talk about that right now.
So, here's a snapshot of the National Resource Directory. When you are there, you can search for support in a variety of ways via the filters that are available. So, you can search by your location to see which external organizations are in your local area. You can search by support provided. So, across each domain of well-being and you can search by the population served, whether you're a Reg Force/Reserve member, a veteran, or a family member. All organizations in the National Resource Directory have been vetted and verified by MTEP to confirm the level of support they provide and to confirm that they actually do provide support to the military, veteran, family community.
Another important resource is the Digital Transition Center or the DTC. So, the DTC was created to be that one stop shop, one door to open for all members that are going through a transition. So, if you're thinking about transition, the first thing you should think of is the DTC. Some of the services and actions you complete at the DTC include managing your transition plan that you have worked on with your TA. You can also review upcoming transition events such as a My Transition Seminar or a Career Transition Workshop. You can request an appointment with one of your Guided Support Team members, you can be linked to your My VAC account, you can register for transition training events, and you can also browse the National Resource Directory. The DTC continues to evolve, and the capabilities are going to continue to grow, but these are just some of the initial capabilities at this time.
So, to end off, here's a couple of important links. The first link will take you to the military career transition web page to explore transition supports that are available to you and you can access via the link there or the QR code provided. And the second link will take you to a web page for you to browse where your local transition centre is located.
So, thank you very much for listening and I wish you all the best.
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