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Military, first responders’ kids get help understanding PTSD at Edmonton-area camp

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At first blush, the camp Jade Jones and her sister attended last summer near Sherwood Park sounds like an ordinary getaway for kids, with horses, swimming, games and crafts.

After the fun, though, the camp turned to a tricky topic.

“We talked about some background about all of our families, and how they got PTSD and everything,” said Jones, a Grade 6 student whose parents worked for the RCMP and Canadian military. “And there’s some videos and there’s some worksheets on PTSD and we learned more about it.”

Jones, 11, is one of hundreds of kids to participate in a program launched by Wounded Warriors Canada to help youth with parents whose work has left them with mental-health struggles.

Warrior Kids was created in 2019 by Jerris Popik and her sister Helena Hawryluk after years working with military families in Edmonton during Canada’s war in Afghanistan.

“What we were witnessing as social workers working with military families was just this very huge impact on the home front — what happens when military members were coming back with these invisible injuries,” Popik said. “Nobody quite knew (or) understood what that impact looked like to the children and the youth who were witnessing these really massive changes with their parents.”

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