Wounded Warriors - Scott Maxwell, CEO - “Supporting Trauma-Exposed Professionals Across Canada

In this episode, Perley Brewer speaks with Scott Maxwell, CEO of Wounded Warriors Canada, about their mission toprovide mental health services for veterans, first responders, and their families.

Key highlights:

 ✅ How Wounded Warriors evolved from its roots in Afghanistan to a national leader in mental health care

 ✅ Innovative programs like COPE, Warrior Kids, and PTSD Service Dogs

 ✅ A groundbreaking partnership with WorkSafeNB/Travail sécuritaire NB to strengthen mental health supports

If you’re passionate about mental health, resilience, and supporting those who serve, this conversation is a must-listen.



Listen now https://www.safetyservicesnb.ca/services/podcast/



#MentalHealth #Leadership #Veterans #FirstResponders #Resilience #WoundedWarriors #Podcast

Transcript

Perley Brewer   0:05
 Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's podcast guest is Scott Maxwell of Wounded Warriors. Welcome, Scott.

 Scott Maxwell   0:15
 Thank you for having me on Pearly.
Perley Brewer   0:18
 So let's start with Scott. What is a wounded warriors organization all about?
Scott Maxwell   0:24
 Yeah, we're so now here we stand in 2025. We're a national mental health service provider that serves ill and injured members of the key forces, veterans, first responders, their families and and a broader catchment of what we classify as trauma exposed professionals who work in trauma exposed organizations.
 From coast to coast to coast. So we're here now we get we kind of joke a little bit that we're a bit of a 12 or 13 year overnight success, but we we've been at this for a long time. I always kind of situate that half jokingly to say you know we have been at this for for a while and started in the evolution of the organization has really taken.
 Shape over the full duration of that time coming out of Afghanistan, as we were as a country back in 2000 and 12:13, and then the rise of the invisible injury and post traumatic stress disorder and operational stress injuries and the and the whole thing that got us involved domestically here across the country to help better serve.
 The population that we are so proud to work with and work alongside with.
Perley Brewer   1:27
 So how do you get involved yourself, Scott?
Scott Maxwell   1:30
 Well, I think that could be another podcast topic, really. I mean, there's it's a it's a long winded story. I'll get right to the, I'll cut. I'll try to get right to the point of it. I was working in, in the Canadian government federally and was working with a Minister of consular services, consular affairs, whose nephew.
 Was Sapper Mike Mctagg, an engineer from the Red 32 Combat Engineer Regiment in Toronto, who is nearly killed by an IED that killed a number of Canadians, September 19th, 2006 so.
 You know, it was we just started paying attention to it because you're on the hill, you're around the federal government, the new Veterans Charter was coming out was a very bad time for the country. Afghanistan, just so we just started paying attention to it. As someone working in and around it federally. And then in 2007, June 11th, 2007 high school.
 Close friend of mine was killed by an ID in Afghanistan, so it just started this. That year period was just kind of like a galvanizing time in my life for around the military around service sacrifice. So I kind of kept my career going federally and then thought if there was ever a time where I can make a difference and help pay.
 Some of these experiences, certainly the life of Darrell Caswell, was my friends name forward. I would give it a shot and that opportunity presented was presented to me many years later in 2012. The end of 2012 going to 2013 when.
 When this Sapper Mike Mctagg Wounded Warrior fund that started as a result of that incident, no six was wound down repatriated back from overseas, and there was this decision to be made around do you shut it down or do you do the organization want to come up with something domestically that can serve?
 The domestic need around operational stress injuries and so wounded Warriors Canada was born formally and I left the provincial government Ontario to come and give it a hand and 13 years later and everything the rest is history.
Perley Brewer   3:37
 Now, one of the admissions I have to make right up front, I was under the impression that wounded warriors only really dealt with the military community, and that's wrong.
Scott Maxwell   3:44
 Yeah.
 Yeah, that's wrong. Yeah, we made. That was our inception. That's how. That's the the roots of the organization stems all the way back. As I was saying to 2006 and the Canadian Armed Forces members serving in Afghanistan. But then post it started to work with ill injured veterans.
 From all theatres and conflicts and their families, but then around a couple, I mean 2014, fifteen a few years into the work of Wounded Warriors Canada proper serving the mental health side of the care continuum here in Canada, we what we started to hear a lot from.
 First responders, public safety personnel reaching out everywhere I went to the country was like, boom, overnight just seemed to hit and I think some of that was due to the shadow that was cast by our length of time in Afghanistan, the focus on.
Perley Brewer   4:28
 Hmm.
Scott Maxwell   4:42
 Military and veteran and family and I I get that and certainly appreciate that. But it was it you could you could feel the first responder population kind of coming out of the shadows a bit a few years later saying you know don't forget about us trauma trying to get an exposure downstream the consequences of it the cumulative nature of it the injury.
 Every side of it can have just as real of an impact on us, obviously as it does for our kind of brothers and sisters that serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. So that's when we made and we when we thought of wounded Warriors Canada, we always thought of a Wounded Warrior as someone that, you know, kind of serves without unlimited liability.
 That that they that many of them work with certainly military and police plus the the traumatic event exposure nature of their work no matter where they're doing it is very similar obviously different but very similar in terms of the traumatic event exposure bit.
 So it was our launchpad into expanding the scope of the mission in 2015 of Wounded Warriors Canada to include public safety personnel and their families. So it was a big, you know, it wasn't a mission creep at all. It was just the population that we serve went from.
 You know, 500,000 veterans or whatever the number is to the serving side of the Canadian forces to this massive group, that's that active and retired, that serves every community in the country and their families. But my goodness, we never look back. It's been a wonderful experience.
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer   6:10
 So I had the opportunity the other day to go on your website, which by the way is an excellent website, easy to sort of manoeuvre around. Let's go through some of the items that that you talked about on your website, the first one being a trauma exposed professional.
Scott Maxwell   6:11
 Yeah.
 Yes.
 Thank you.
 Yeah, I'm glad you you mentioned that it's it's it's a new term to the to, to the community to Canada, certainly to wounded Warriors Canada, our national clinical director, Doctor Tim Black is the one that came up with it and we were why we decided to well a we were thinking about a term to use.
Perley Brewer   6:25
 Explain what what that is.
Scott Maxwell   6:44
 To describe who we serve was because as we expanded as I was just describing from who it is, we're working with, it became like a lengthy paragraph or more certainly not an elevator conversation. You can kind of quickly get to it and people don't understand who you're working with so.
 And especially when we added first responders because there's public safety personnel, there's communicators, dispatchers, there's all this glossary of terminology that exists out there on the public safety side, far be it from the military and veteran side. So we thought, look, OK, instead of it taking us all this time and a paragraph to the to the to outline who it is we're working with.
 What about what's the common denominator of of of those that we serve, and that is the traumatic event exposure piece? So why don't we just call them kind of or identify them as what they are as trauma exposed professionals working in trauma exposed organizations?
 You know, and around that is, of course, their families. And what is a trauma, a traumatic a trauma exposed professional. There are individuals who, through the course of their regular job duties, are continually exposed to traumatic events involving actual or threatened death. Serious injury.
 And or sexual violence, which is the PTSD criterion under the the diagnostic statistic manual, DSM five, that you that is used clinically to diagnose or work with or or attribute an injury to.
 Their role, their service, their duties. So it just was a natural alignment anyway, because we work with the DSM 5 criteria, who those are our clients who have these types of injuries. So pairing it to the language more broadly coming out of when where's Canada all the time was natural fit and the best part is just to end on this point really is that even.
 Even though the scope, because there's a lot of trauma exposed, professional people working in Canada, even though the scope has broadened, it hasn't felt like a mission creep. It's actually narrowed the focus of what curriculum we are devising and delivering and ultimately who feels safe and supported and understood to come, speak to, or work with or get.
 Help from wounded Warriors County.
Perley Brewer   8:51
 So you have 3 trauma exposed to professional programs that you offer to to different individuals. Let's talk about those, the first one being resiliency in the home.
Scott Maxwell   8:59
 Yeah.
 Yeah. So the those are more not so much programs, but generally what we're trying to say when we say resiliency and recovery, we we talk about the effort that our programs are trying to are trying to deliver and the impact we're trying to to affect is through making sure that the that.
 And healthier trauma exposed professionals leads to healthier family and home life environments, healthy social environments, healthy professional environments. So you say resiliency in the home, one of the most often the biggest gaps that we've ever heard going back to our inception.
 Was the lack of support for the family members that stand beside and behind those who who keep our country and our community safe? So that's been a hallmark of wounded Wars Canada since our inception is, is is ensuring that when we think about program development and delivery, we think about the impacts and effects of trauma.
 We that you don't just look at it through the narrow lens of the individual member that you always have that 360 approach to care and you think about their spouses and their partners. And you think about their children and their effects on that population and you. And there's programming out there.
 That can support their needs too, so that's the that's the home side of our focus. So we have a program, our first program we ever built in 2015 called COPE, which stands for couples overcoming post traumatic stress every day.
 Our spousal resiliency program, our Warrior kids programming, the programming for fallout for spouses or partners who have lost a loved one in the line of duty, or as a result of death by suicide or surviving family program. That's what we were referring to programmatically, when we speak about the resiliency in the home.
 The other one is resiliency in the community, which is I think a lot of what we so Windward County has two sides of our House. We have the health services side of our House, which is where all the programs.
Marc Daigle   11:02
 Play song.
Scott Maxwell   11:06
 Are exist and then we have and are delivered through and the clinical team and the health service coordinators and then on the other side of it, the other side of our house is the other is the charitable foundation and the charitable foundation is the community side of.
Marc Daigle   11:07
 None.
 Hmm.
Scott Maxwell   11:24
 Canadians who wish to support those that keep the country and community safe, so our charitable foundation has been in has been with us since 2006, when the first fund was set up. But really, the goal of that is to engage Canadians, engage Community, to let those that serve know that the Community has their back.
 Canadians care about their service. They honor the service, they respect their service, and they show that through a multitude of events and activities, fundraising and things that have allowed wounded Warriors Canada to be nimble, to be reflexive and adaptive to the changing needs of.
 Of those who serve in their families. So that's the community bit. And then on the the individual resiliency of course is just the work that we do for the Members.
Perley Brewer   12:08
 OK, training and clinical services, what do you provide in that area?
Scott Maxwell   12:13
 Yeah. So that's a. So what happened when we added first responders into the organization back ten years ago is when we. So they are downstream clinical counseling programs are are facilitated in Group. So they're group based.
 So you could have a, you know, a group of veterans, or when we added first responders, you could have a paramedic, police officer, an Afghan veteran, a Rwandan veteran, whatever. In these mixed cohorts and what public safety professionals were telling us coming out of these group programs was.
 A common kind of refrain that I I wish I'd I wish I'd known this earlier in my career. Unlike the military where the military is always pre deployment or training all the time, it's very different in public safety where they're operational all the time and there's so little time and and.
 And ultimately money to be operate, to be training from a psychological health and safety perspective. So they were saying like I if I had known about the psycho education, these terms and skills that you're teaching in Group based psychotherapy way earlier in my career.
 You know, maybe I wouldn't be sitting here off work, maybe never going back to work. So that really launched us into this upstream side of our service delivery beginning in 2018 where we came up with a that we partnered with a program through a clinic in Calgary and the program is called BOSS, which stands for before.
 More operational stress and started to deliver that program across the country on the most kind of front end of this of this continuum of service to help people. Ideally when we say resiliency and upstream and through the training programs that we have now, there are several.
 Is not to say you know, it's another. We just are simply throwing us another piece of body armor on somebody or, you know, better helmets or better, better operational gear. That's going to somehow prevent a psychological injury. It's to say, well, our goal about resiliency is a equipping these folks with the skills and tools that we know they need.
 Do these jobs effectively and safely in the operational reality, but also too, for those that may need to to to some some further assistance clinically as a result of what they've seen and what they've done that they put that hand up or take that knee.
 Much earlier in their operational careers, from what we had seen historically going back to 2013, when the population coming to our downstream programs was kind of, they were often just saying like I'm on my last, this is my last ditch effort. I've been through marriages. I'm all I feel like I'm nearly homeless. I don't have any hope.
 I'm in a very desperate situation and now I think a wounded Warriors Canada program would be helpful. We are trying to move that yardstick and those goal posts way upstream, so it's not only resiliency and training that's upstream and early. The right care at the right time, but it's also, it also meets clinical services.
 To help them stay kind of do the work to stay at work, feel healthy, be healthy and well.
Perley Brewer   15:18
 So you also you talk about service dogs on your website.
Scott Maxwell   15:21
 Yes, big pro. So the first program we ever really got involved in or started to fund because we weren't a service delivery provider, went back in 2013. We were a terrible foundation that would give funds that we received to 3rd party program providers and service dogs.
 There was a CTVI don't know if you've ever seen up early, but CTV has a long standing show called W 5 and you know it. There was AW 5 show on way back when called Canine Comrades and it was highlighting the the use of PTSD service dogs from our Allied military.
Perley Brewer   15:45
 Mm-hmm.
Scott Maxwell   15:58
 Nations that were having very great effect in of of pairing PTSD service dogs to I'll and injured veterans. And so we thought, well, there's providers in Canada, the Veterans Affairs Canada doesn't recognize this modality. Why this organization is.
 When words are set up to fill gaps, why there's a gap? So we started to fund. We started to identify training providers. We don't train dogs here at Window Wars Canada internally. We bring in our various schools to who do, who are professionals in doing in service dog and dog training and PTSD service dog training.
 And they do all the heavy lifting of that work, but what's important to note on PTSD service dogs, that's been a long standing issue in the sector is that there's not a national, there's an absence of a national.
 PDF service dog standard in the country. So what you get is this patchwork approach to standardization. You've probably seen news articles where there's people just kind of have vests on dogs that aren't maybe properly trained or vetted and and it causes a lot of confusion in the space.
Perley Brewer   16:59
 Mm-hmm.
Scott Maxwell   17:06
 So in the absence of a national standard for Canada, we have set up our own standard at Wounded Warriors Canada with the best available provincial and international standards that exist in the world to say if you want to train with a wounded Warriors Canada, you know, vest for your dog and funding through us to support the provision of these dogs.
 You have to meet all these criterias from prescriber, from clinical prescriber guidelines, to financial, the whole thing. It's a very robust exercise and so we've got 7 schools now that train from coast to coast and both my official languages and and our investment annually is is is reaching about 100. You know from the we don't.
 Just like it's not just to name a dog. Place a dog it. It's a it's a multi year process per dog. So our funding is helping the process overall in around 100 dogs a year.
Perley Brewer   17:58
 So recently, Scott, you teamed up with Worksafe NB to strengthen mental health supports to trauma exposed professionals and tell us a little bit about that collaboration.
Scott Maxwell   18:10
 For sure, so that this is the compensation board work that we're engaged in right now nationally really started with work with work safe New Brunswick and their effort to really, I would say almost overhaul or do better by the trauma exposed professional client base that they serve.
 And very humbly kind of came to us to say, look, we want to we we know there's we can serve this pot. There's the uniqueness of this population better and it's great because that's something that we've kind of long struggled with historically is is getting our services.
 Both on the clinical service offering to trauma exposed professionals, but just our expertise generally and in working with this population overall into compensation boards in the country. So very much a first mover, work safety, Brunswick, what does it mean? What are we doing? So we've been delivering our trauma resiliency training.
 Courses and education to from people that pick up and take the first phone call. The case manager side of the continuum of workers. Work safety. Brunswick right through to the community healthcare providers from a cultural competency perspective.
 And when I say when really in our space, in our sector, cultural competency is kind of king, if you don't, if the service you're providing to this unique TXP population does not meet, cultural competency is not, is not built on the cultural competency of the uniqueness of the of this professional.
 And these professionals, you're going to, you're going to struggle to do the work really well. And so we've had seen that historically. And finally, compensation boards were kind of opening, putting down their protective gates, I guess to say a little bit and saying look, you know, we realize there's no, no one single organization is can be the 100% solution.
 For the scale and the scope of these needs, we need partnerships. We need subject matter expertise beyond ourselves and we got to work doing it. So that's what we announced at the health and Safety Conference in Fredericton not that long ago and.
Perley Brewer   20:09
 Right.
Scott Maxwell   20:15
 And it was a it was what a statement for Tim and the team there to get up on stage and and just humbly state that we're we're proudly partnered with Wind Wars Canada and vice versa for us to them. And and we're going to help do better by the population that keeps New Brunswickers safe.
Perley Brewer   20:31
 So obviously you're doing tremendous work and certainly congratulate you for that. When we do a podcast related to post Traumatic stress topic especially, we really get an uptick in, in, in people listening.
 So if someone today is listening from our community, someone that suffers from post traumatic stress as a paramedic, whatever, how should they go about to get in touch with you?
Scott Maxwell   20:58
 Sure.
Perley Brewer   21:05
 And how would you, if you had a couple of minutes or even 5 minutes to to address them directly, what would you say to them?
Scott Maxwell   21:13
 Well, first we always say, you know, thank you for your service. There's their service and sacrifice is deeply valued. It's the reason that when the worst Canada is still standing 13 years later is because we care. Canadians care. Your community members care your family's care. The healthcare provider network cares and help and.
 Service support mental health Service support does exist. It's available. It's accessible so you know reach out. Feel valued. They're definitely not alone in the effort. We are work. We are doing this work from coast to coast in every province and territory in the country and the needs that made, they may feel better.
 Unique or having them in an isolated environment is is. It's not, they're they're not alone in the fight and we're here to do it together so you can reach out to wounded Warriors Canada through our general, you know, wounded warriors, dot, CAA, lot of a lot of people are on social media using different platforms. We have. We're on all of them send a message. Don't hesitate to reach.
 Reach out. We have a new platform called Warrior Health, which has 24 crisis line support, 24/7 peer support. So the warrior health.ca is that link. Anybody anywhere can go on that Web page right now and receive anonymous.
 Confidential, culturally competent trauma. Informed information around things that we're talking about here in this podcast, so access it, use it, and reach out.
Perley Brewer   22:39
 Look, Scott, I'd like to thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule today to talk to us. Thank you very much for the service that you and your organization are providing to the professionals across Canada. We certainly appreciate it.
Scott Maxwell   22:54
 Thanks, Broly, it's a pleasure.
Perley Brewer   22:56
 So for our podcast listeners, stay safe. Have a good week and and certainly don't be afraid to to share this podcast with others that might benefit from the message that Scott is delivered today. Take care.