| Recipient: | Queen’s University |
|---|---|
| Project: | Servicewomen’s Salute Portal for Research and Resources |
| Province: | Ontario |
| Period: | 01 September 2018 – 10 December 2023 |
| Funding: | $210,000 |
Overview:
This five-year project sought to support women Veterans and still-serving servicewomen transitioning out of the CAF to live in Canadian communities by specifically filling information, understanding, and participation gaps in research and service supports.
Project Goals:
The main goals of this project were to:
- create a centralized research and resource online portal with a robust search catalogue of information resources for Canadian women Veterans;
- use oral history narrative research and storytelling collection methods with supporting guidance by Queen’s University historians, University of Winnipeg Oral History Centre, Canadian War Museum and Canadian Human Rights Museum Oral Historians to document former servicewomen’s military and civilian experiences; and
- cultivate a sense of community and belonging for former servicewomen including how women Veterans can share their military-civilian cultural competency knowledge and experiences with other servicewomen and their local communities, as peers, coaches, mentors and sponsors.
Project Activities:
To achieve these goals, the project team completed the following activities:
- commenced the transformation of the Servicewomen’s Salute website into an online portal for research about Canadian women Veterans and servicewomen transitioning from military to civilian life;
- consulted with the community of women Veterans about the material they require, beginning with research categories such as military sexual trauma (MST) operational stress injuries (OSI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and others; and
- compiled a comprehensive literature review of research about women Veterans as well as a scan for resources, in both English and French.
Project Results:
Transforming the Servicewomen’s Salute website into an online portal proceeded as planned but development slowed down due to restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, due to a reallocation of efforts, the project exceeded its planned literature review activities. As there were very few scholarly articles about women Veterans, the project team, in collaboration with others, produced more than expected peer-reviewed publications and unpublished reports on this topic. The scan for resources, in both English and French, was presented at CIMVHR Forum 2019 and published in the Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health (February 2022). In addition, the project quickly established a presence on social media (Facebook, X and Instagram) while also producing a number of English and French blog posts to share knowledge translation of research materials for women Veterans.