The Courier

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For some, hearing the word research can have a bit of an otherworldly effect. With thoughts like “That’s about someone else,” “That’s not relevant to me,” or even “My experiences don’t have any value” perhaps being the first thing coming to mind, it can be difficult to understand the importance of these individual perspectives at a more global level.

Fardous Hosseiny, President and CEO
Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
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At the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, we engage both Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Veterans and Family members in our research efforts because we believe listening to expertise stemming from experience improves the research and helps to create different and better outcomes for the community. The Atlas Institute’s research is driven by a commitment to mental health equity and is informed by the seven domains of well-being, which include the social determinants of health. We design our research projects so they answer the questions that matter to Veterans and their Families.

People with lived experience and expertise help guide researchers toward identifying issues and prioritizing them for those affected. Not only does it help with identifying questions and the aims of the research, it also supports the identification of practical implications and offers potential future research directions. From a service-delivery perspective, involving the community that is impacted can optimize approaches to treatments in both clinical practices and service delivery. 

Bringing together experience and integrating it into science allows us to look beyond facts as the basis of understanding, and expanding the interpretation of the data in a way that is meaningful to the community and that will support what should be done to improve their lives. 

There are many opportunities for Veteran and Veteran Family participation in our ongoing studies. Our current projects include appraising the evidence for peer support, creating a sound measure of moral injury and assessing the prevalence of intimate partner violence in military and Veteran Families. Whether we are leading studies or supporting our research partners in their endeavours, the Atlas Institute aligns its research efforts with what Veterans and their Families tell us are their unique mental health care and treatment needs.

In 2022-23, the Atlas Institute and our research partners launched new studies focused on topics such as aging, cannabis, moral injury, the transition to post-military life, neurofeedback as a treatment option for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), problematic anger, suicide prevention and traumatic brain injury, among others. None of these projects would have been possible without advisory groups composed of people with lived experience attached to them. 

As we look towards the future, we are currently recruiting for CAF and RCMP Veterans and Family members who might find themselves interested in sharing your experiences as part of these studies on:

 

Your experiences matter. They matter to you personally, and your knowledge and wisdom matters to others who might be faced with the same issues. If sharing your personal experiences as part of ongoing research speaks to you, we would ask you to visit our website to find out more information on how to get involved at atlasveterans.ca/recruiting-studies

Arthur Conan Doyle, crime writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, once wisely said, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” The truth in this statement is that data will guide us towards answers we are seeking. In the case of the Atlas Institute, we conduct research for exactly that reason and we intentionally engage with people who have lived experience to help guide our research. We believe this first-person knowledge is the key to the doorway of those answers.

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