Improving Early Identification and Early Intervention for CAF Mental Health Needs

Funding opportunity

Technological barriers and enablers to the use of Digital Support Tools and Agentic AI Support Tools

Anticipated timeline and budget

Background

CAF members can experience mental health challenges across diverse operational contexts. Digital mental health support tools have the potential to be of use for common mental health problems prevalent in the Canadian Armed Forces. However, to date they have not been adopted. This funding opportunity seeks research that strengthens the evidence base on technological barriers and enables early intervention and develops actionable guidance for Canadian Forces Health Services (CFHS) and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) decision-making, with a particular focus on the utility of agentic AI system-powered multimodality information integration and subsequent decision-making and assistance, (e.g. conversational and reliability assurance AI agents). These digital support tools (including conversational interfaces) may be explored as an intervention to support early engagement and navigation to appropriate resources; provided safety, ethics, and privacy are addressed explicitly.

Proposed activities may include the development, adaptation, and evaluation of limited-scope proof-of-concept digital or AI-enabled tools that support non-diagnostic early engagement, self-guided intake and reflection, structured information gathering, referral readiness, care navigation, member support, or human-supervised workflows related to CAF mental health and wellbeing needs.

Activities may also examine the feasibility, acceptability, utility, and workflow integration of conversational or multimodal digital support tools within ethically governed mental health support contexts.

Research objectives

This funding opportunity seeks submissions that will generate practical evidence for CFHS/VAC on:

• Technological barriers and enablers to early help-seeking and early intervention uptake for CAF-related mental health needs (member and clinician perspectives).
• Safety, ethical, and privacy considerations for digital and agentic AI interventions used to support early intervention and measurement-based care (including risk mitigation approaches).
• Implementation of guidance and recommendations to inform future policy, practice, and R&D scoping.

Desired outputs

• Final research report including: (1) evidence of synthesis, (2) stakeholder findings, (3) evaluation results, and (4) clear recommendations for CFHS/VAC.
• Implementation and evaluation framework/checklist suitable for future scoping and decision-making.
• Annotated bibliography/reference list supporting the evidence of synthesis.
• Virtual briefing/presentation of findings to the project sponsor(s) and stakeholders.
• Quarterly progress updates (brief).

Applicant qualifications and requirements

Applicants should demonstrate the following capabilities:

• Expertise in mental health services research, implementation science, clinical psychology/psychiatry, or a closely related field.
• Experience conducting research with sensitive populations, including appropriate ethics and privacy safeguards.
• Capability to evaluate digital health interventions, including leveraging agentic AI, for accessibility, utility, safety, and risk management.
• Capacity to translate findings into actionable recommendations for government and health system stakeholders.
• Proposals focused primarily on standalone identification of technological barriers and enablers specific to the use of digital self-help tools (e.g., qualitative interviews or surveys alone) may be considered less competitive unless clearly linked to validation, prioritization, or intervention development.
• Priority will be given to proposals that move beyond description toward testing, evaluating, or operationalizing solutions (e.g., workflow changes, digital supports, decision aids).
• Proposals should demonstrate a substantive and central role for digital or agentic AI-enabled approaches in supporting early intervention with multimodality information integration-based decision-making and assistance.

Application deadline

Please download and submit the Research Funding Application form

Applicants are advised to include six weeks of administrative lead-time in their timelines. This will allow for ethics board submission and approval, and the drafting and signing of the funding agreement.

Enquiries

For questions related to this funding opportunity, please contact the VAC Research office at research-recherche@veterans.gc.ca