Modelling the Kiwi Veteranscape

Kawenata Toa - The R.A.S.P. Model

There are many impediments to providing top-level support to New Zealand military veterans and their families. Amongst those are an overly prescriptive definition of who is a veteran and a proliferation of agencies and individuals tasked with some aspect or another of delivering the nation's duty of care to these men and women. While there has been some academic study of medical and psychological issues amongst veterans, there has never been, to the best of the author's knowledge, an overarching model of veteran services. The R.A.S.P. (Remembrance - Advocacy - Support - Purpose) is a first attempt at such a model and is published here as a discussion paper on which to base future work.

At the core of this model is the veteran and their family. The national duty of care is not properly defined but should be encapsulated in legislation that creates a 'Veteran Covenant' (Kawenata Toa). Military service is so fundamental to the creation and enduring nature of this country that a covenant (acknowledging the ongoing responsibilities of those who were protected toward those who put their life in danger to protect others), in my view, is as important a founding document as the Treaty of Waitangi.

The four quadrants of Remembrance, Advocacy, Support and Purpose and the concept of 'BIG' and 'small' have been developed from numerous discussions and much reading of veteran literature. In this regard, I wish to particularly acknowledge the contributions of NZ Remembrance Army founder, Major (Retd) Simon Strombom and former Associate Defence Minister, Captain (Retd) Hon Heather Roy. For each of the four quadrants the capitalised section ('BIG') is for systemic functions. The lower case ('small') is for matters relating to specific veterans or small groups.

So, for the four 'BIG' sections, the description of contents looks like this:

The four 'small' sections are described in the next picture:

Having defined the quadrants, existing service providers can be categorised and mapped. This is not an exhaustive list and no-one has been left off intentionally.

In the next iteration, potential new services, providers or solutions are added in red italics:

Finally, the quadrants are subjectively assessed as to how well veteran needs are being met in each case. Loosely based on the icons from the Boston Consulting Group matrix, DOG is weak, RISING STAR is good but there is room for improvement. QUESTION MARK speaks for itself.

As can be seen, with the exception of remembrance, there is much work to. This requires a team of teams to work effectively. In terms of the centrality of the veteran and their family, some resources will follow the veteran – not go to service providers first. Weak service providers (of which there are several) won’t survive.

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