Resolve Counselling Services is one of 20 community based organizations that are receiving funding from the Department of National Defence’s Sexual Misconduct and Resource Centre (SMSRC) to offer free services to members of the Defence community who have been impacted by sexual misconduct.
Just over three years ago, a report put together by former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour dug into a military culture that Arbour said was rampant with sexual misconduct, and a “broken system” that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are incapable of addressing on their own.
This round of funding from the DND is a step meant to help address some of the issues that were highlighted in the lengthy report, providing the opportunity for organizations all over Canada to provide free services to current and former CAF members.
Resolve Counselling in Kingston will be funded for a 3 year period that began in October of this year, and provides priority counselling services do defence community members who have experienced sexual misconduct as well as their supporters, free of charge and without a waitlist.
Executive Director of Resolve Counselling Services Stafford Murphy says programs being funded like the one at Resolve are focused on trying to “mitigate some of the harm” caused to active and former service members who have experienced sexual misconduct in some form.
The organization is receiving $75,000 in each of the next three years to provide services to veterans and current members of DND, and Murphy says it will allow Resolve to ensure members of the CAF have access to these services right when they’re looking for them, removing as many barriers as possible.
“It provides us with stable funding to to provide these services free to these survivors and their loved ones, so that they don’t have to wait for service and the money doesn’t have to come out of their pocket,” Murphy said.
“Accessing counseling and/or therapy in the community, there aren’t a lot of free options… this is an opportunity where the barriers have been removed and so people don’t have to pay out of pocket and we are in a position that they will not have to languish on a waiting list for a long period of time.”
Through the grant, Resolve will have a target of approximately 420 sessions delivered per year, and are in the process of trying to get the word out about these available services.
Murphy says that trying to market those services has been the only real change needed to accommodate the program.
He says Resolve was already well suited to provide the services and have done so for other community members in the Kingston area having been in operation for over 50 years now, saying that the organization would be a good place to take advantage of the grant funding as infrastructure was already in place.
Because of that, Defence community members who are interested in services can be connected immediately.
“We know that we had the internal infrastructure and that if given the opportunity we could provide that that service,” Murphy said.
“Our staff are very well trained. There are master’s level therapists and we’re ready to go… it fits in very nicely with the long-term therapy that we’re already offering to the community.”
Although services like this one being offered by Resolve Counselling are acknowledged as a need by the CAF after Justice Arbour’s 2022 report, Murphy hopes their uptake and the role they can play for Defence community members can also help encourage further progress more broadly for mental health care in Canada.
While he says positive strides have been made both federally and provincially to address gaps in the mental health care system – remarking specifically on investments made in the intimate partner violence sector – there’s still a long way to go.
With many people in Ontario and other provinces around the country fearing a two-tiered health care system coming to Canada, Murphy says when it comes to mental health care, it’s already here.
“Canadians pride themselves on our health care system… however, when it comes to mental health, we very much have a two-tiered mental health system,” Murphy said.
“The more money you have the easier it is for you to access service and the more services that are available to you… I think we are slowly moving in the right direction. I think the the stigma around mental health and talking about mental health has been reduced over the last couple of decades.”
Murphy added that businesses have started to move in a direction of supporting their employees’ mental well being and that should continue, even if it is primarily due to cost/benefit analyses.
