{"id":20541,"date":"2018-05-02T15:45:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T19:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20541"},"modified":"2018-05-02T15:45:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T19:45:26","slug":"wounded-warriors-ontario-legion-partnership-will-help-veterans-living-with-ptsd-address-stigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wounded-warriors-ontario-legion-partnership-will-help-veterans-living-with-ptsd-address-stigma\/","title":{"rendered":"Wounded Warriors, Ontario Legion partnership will help veterans living with PTSD, address stigma"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

In more than 20 years living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Medric Cousineau never had a mental health professional rush to his bedside when he was having an \u201cepisode\u201d to say, \u2018Hey, buddy, I\u2019ve got you.\u201d
\nThen Thai, a yellow Labrador retriever, came into his life.
\n\u201cShe does that every single night,\u201d says Cousineau, a retired RCAF captain who has lived with PTSD since being hurt in a search and rescue mission in 1986. \u201cShe is so good, now she can head them off before they even start. She truly is a hero.\u201d
\nLife was pretty rough before Cousineau received his PTSD service dog, a partnership that was only forged when his home branch of the Royal Canadian Legion banded together with the Nova Scotia-Nunavut command to raise the money needed to bring Thai to him.
\nThe struggle to therapy dogs for Ontario servicepersons is set to become a little bit easier in the future with a new partnership between Wounded Warriors and the Royal Canadian Legion\u2019s Ontario Command.
\nMr. Cousineau was on hand for the partnership\u2019s announcement on Thursday which will see Ontario Command provide $225,000 to fund 10 PTSD service dogs, which will then be paired with ill and injured veterans and their families within the Province.
\nThe partnership comes on the heels of the Federal Canadian General Standards Service Board decision to withdraw their intent to produce a National Standard for Service Dogs, a move which was greeted with derision by those gathered at Ontario Command last week.
\n\u201cIn 2015, a moratorium was placed on the use of poppy funds for service dogs until Canadian National Standards were developed,\u201d said Ontario Command president Sharon McKeown. \u201cOver three years later, last year, frustrated with the lack of progress in developing these standards, we at Ontario Command began resourcing other provincial commands and service dog providers in light of putting together a program for Ontario Command. It was essential to us that service providers, the dog providers, be reputable, recognized organizations. Partnering with Wounded Warriors Canada, which has been working with our comrades in the east and the west, was a regular step for us.
\n\u201cThe mandate of Wounded Warriors and the Royal Canadian Legion are basically alike. Our mandate is the care and comfort of military and RCMP veterans. Theirs is the same, but includes first responders. Going forward, we will go forward to develop a successful partnership in service to our veterans and their families.\u201d
\nThe partnership was also warmly received by Phil Ralph, National Program Director of Wounded Warriors Canada, who heralded Thursday\u2019s announcement as a \u201cproud and historic day\u201d for the organization.
\nBack in February, Wounded Warriors announced its national program for PTSD service dogs, but, in that time, the playing field has change with the roadblock before the development of national standards.
\n\u201cThere is a military dictum that is very simple: lead, follow, or get out of the way,\u201d he said. \u201cWounded Warriors Canada has decided to take the lead on this and to publish standards that are clearly available on our website and we know people across the country have seen the life-changing nature that these dogs have in the lives of our veterans. Some of those changed lives are in this room today with their dogs. We have been proud to support this initiative across the country for the last number of years.
\n\u201cThe launch of our program in February signalled to the Canadian public that there was a place they could trust to put their hard-earned donor dollars in a program that was credible, looked at the highest standards and was transparent as to how it was delivered. We are so excited to announce this, our first strategic partnership, and the largest donation to Wounded Warriors Canada PTSD Service Dogs from the Royal Canadian Legion\u2019s Ontario Command, to the Comrades in Ontario, I want to say thank you. To its leadership, thank you. You are leading the way in the country by positioning your trust with wounded warriors Canada and its PTSD service dog program.\u201d
\nFrom the perspective of Mr. Cousineau, this announcement goes a long way, but there is still a \u201cstigma\u201d that needs to be addressed. He had particularly sharp words for the Minister of Veterans Affairs and his \u201cdiscourse about psychiatric service dogs in the House of Commons.\u201d
\n\u201cAs a disabled veteran with a mental health injury, who lives with PTSD, I need no further stigma,\u201d said Mr. Cousineau, who walked thousands of kilometres to raise awareness of PTSD wearing a t-shirt with the slogan \u201cPut the Stigma Down\u201d emblazoned across the back. \u201cA review of the Government website is littered with the word \u201cpsychiatric.\u201d That word is, in and of itself, stigmatizing. That stigma needs to stop and it needs to stop right now.
\n\u201cToday, Wounded Warriors Canada, as Canada\u2019s foremost veterans and first responders\u2019 mental health charity, in conjunction with the Ontario Provincial Command, are going to put that stigma down effective immediately. Our Service Dog program will cease using references to \u201cpsychiatric\u201d in reference to our service dog program. On a Go Forward basis, we will have veteran assist service dogs.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s announcement, with the Ontario Command, was put there with the single-focused purpose, that being to help veterans and their families. Some are going to naturally ask, is it enough? The honest answer is no. However, no successful journey has ever started without those first very important steps. Today, those steps have been taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In more than 20 years living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Medric Cousineau never had a mental health professional rush to his bedside when he was having an \u201cepisode\u201d to say, \u2018Hey, buddy, I\u2019ve got you.\u201d
\nThen Thai, a yellow Labrador retriever, came into his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-03-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5lj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 17:15:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}