Welcome to Soldiers For Soldiers

To participate in this peer discussion group, you must:

• Be actively serving in the Canadian Armed Forces (RegF or Reservist).
• Have experienced a deployment (nationally or internationally) 
• Speak English as a first language.
• Be willing to have your camera on during the entirety of the group session.

The peer discussion group process:

• The session will be a group setting, and is a remote/online (Zoom) setting with up to 10 participants, plus 2 facilitators.
• As this is not a closed meeting, each meeting will vary in attendance and topics. Each group will begin by establishing guidelines and the topics to be discussed. 

*You will also be provided with a list of relevant mental health supports as you may have found the topics difficult/triggering. 

You will be mailed an evaluation form. This is a voluntary request and you are under no obligation to fill it out.  Should you choose to participate in the evaluation, we will seek to use your input as inspiration for future program conceptualization and to pursue future funding opportunities (i.e. Veteran Well Being Fund or Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, etc) to enhance and expand Soldier for Soldier services.

(Note: as this group is not associated with CAF, please provide a non-DWAN address to receive correspondence).

You will be asked to discuss your experience of reintegrating into your family/social life after having been deployed. You will also hear the experiences of reintegrating after deployment from your peers. It is possible you may find discussion topics stressful or triggering. 

Please review the following consent form to sense an understanding of the risk related to freely engaging in this peer discussion group and sharing your experiences of post deployment reintegration.

Participants must be assured that identifying information will not be made available to anyone who is not directly involved in the group. An important aspect of privacy is the right to control the information about oneself. 

• This group requires voluntary participation; you must not feel pressured to participate in this group.
• The group will NOT be audio recorded, transcribed, or video recorded, but to ensure mutual interaction, we ask that your camera will be on.  
• If you agree to participate in this group, the consent form will have your name on it. Consent forms are stored on the facilitators secure Google Drive. 

There are some limits to confidentiality such as: 

• You will be asked to provide your email to receive a post-group evaluation form and correspondence related to this group. Providing your email is voluntary and not a requirement to join the group. However, since email is not a secure transmission, privacy is not guaranteed. Since email is not encrypted, if email is somehow diverted or lost in transmission, the participant’s information/ identification attached through their email address can be exposed.
• The interviews are over the online meeting platform Zoom. Therefore, as with all telecommunication services, they are typically not secure. 
• The facilitators of this group are in private practice and are not in any way associated with DND, CAF, or VAC. However, they do have to follow the ethical guidelines of their licensing board. This means if they learn of or believe that there is physical or sexual abuse or neglect of any person under 18 years of age, or a vulnerable adult, they must report this information to the proper authorities.
• If they learn of or believe that you are threatening serious harm to another person or yourself, they are obligated to report this to the proper authorities.
• If you report having experienced an abuse of power by a regulated health professional, they must report this information to their regulating body.

You will be asked on the registration to read the above Consent & Confidentiality Agreement and to confirm understanding.