Nine people from across Canada arrived as strangers. Four days later, they left as something harder to name and easier to feel: a unit again. Only this time, it was one they chose.
Roto 9 is a cohort of women and gender-diverse members of our service community: CAF veterans, serving members, first responders and a frontline healthcare worker. Some served for a few years, many for more than twenty. All of them know what it means to carry the weight of others. What they discovered together was what it means to be carried.
More than trauma
People assume a program like ours is about trauma. It’s part of the story, and we never look away from it. But what this group shared went far beyond what happened to them. They shared who they are: the humour, the grit, the love for the people in their lives, and the parts of themselves they set down when they put on the uniform and never quite picked back up.
When service ends, or when you start preparing for that day, institutions do vital work on the practical side, like the pension, the paperwork and the next job. The personal side too often goes unaddressed. An identity built through rank and uniform can walk out the door with the role, and what’s left behind is a grief that often goes unnamed.
In service, mission, purpose and identity are fused into one word. Transition pulls them apart. Camp Aftermath helps people unfuse them and define each one again, on their own terms.
A mission without a purpose is just a task. A purpose without a mission is just a feeling.
The program brought them together. The group changed them.
Camp Aftermath built the space, the structure and the clinical guidance. But I want to be clear about where the impact came from. It came from the group.
It came when one participant said out loud what they had carried alone for years and found eight people who understood without needing an explanation. It came in the late night conversations, the laughter that caught everyone off guard, and the quiet support no facilitator could ever script. No one in that room was the only one anymore.
The moment it turned
If I had to name the moment Roto 9 turned, it was when they noticed that the best of them was ahead of them, not behind them. When they began to show themselves the same grace they had been showing each other all along.
For people who have spent their careers in service to others, that isn’t a small shift. It’s everything.
Phases 1 and 2
Phase 1 brought the group together virtually over four sessions this fall. It’s where strangers begin to become a cohort, and where the first honest sentences get said.
Phase 2 was our in-person retreat from October 19 to 22 at Ciel et Bois in Cantley, Quebec, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. Midway through, we traded the retreat for the warehouse floor of the Ottawa Food Bank and spent a morning serving our community side by side. For people who served their whole careers, there is something deeply restorative about serving again by choice, not by order. Purpose doesn’t have to come from a uniform.
Early signs, honest work
We measure what matters, and we measure it honestly. The early signs are pointing the right way. Participants left feeling more grounded, more connected and more hopeful about their future, and nearly all of them said Camp Aftermath gave them a real sense of belonging. These are early, self-reported impressions from one cohort, not clinical outcomes, and we will keep measuring as the year unfolds.
In their own words:
“Quieter in my head.”
“I lost myself for a bit, but now I can move forward with a purpose.”
But lasting change isn’t a weekend, and a retreat isn’t a finish line. Real reintegration shows up in everyday life: at work, at home, and in the routines that hold a life together. That’s why Camp Aftermath is an approximately one-year program, and why the most important work is still ahead.
Per aspera ad astra
On the back of every Camp Aftermath shirt are four Latin words: per aspera ad astra. Through hardship, to the stars.
No one in Roto 9 got here by avoiding the hard road. They walked it. And this time, they walked it together.
Phase 3
Phase 3 carries Roto 9 through 2027 with continued peer connection and follow-up, and we’ll gather again in person in Montreal in January 2027. This is where insight becomes how they live: new roles, new routines, and an identity built on who they are, not what they wore.
Roto 9 confirmed what I believe more deeply than ever. A Veteran-led, peer-supported, clinically guided and forward-facing approach is the right one, and we’re doubling down on it.
With gratitude
It has been a profound honour to bear witness to this kind of strength.
To the members of Roto 9: thank you for your courage, your honesty and the trust you placed in one another. You did the hard work.
To our mental health leads, Lise Preston and Dr. Karen Shue, thank you for holding this group with such skill and heart. To our volunteers, our Board of Directors and our Advisory Board, thank you for building this with us.
To True Patriot Love Foundation and the Legion National Foundation, thank you for funding Roto 9. Your belief in this work made every moment of it possible.
Phase 3 starts now.
Are you a veteran or first responder navigating life after service, or would you like to support the next cohort?
Learn more about Camp Aftermath, apply to participate, or support the next cohort.
