The Royal British Legion and North Norfolk Railway (NNR) have launched a joint referral scheme for ex-Service personnel that will offer voluntary opportunities in a range of positions within a unique working environment.
Launched on Saturday 24th June at NNR Holt Station, during the Tracks & Trenches weekend event, the new scheme is a collaboration between the Legion and NNR that will offer recent service leavers and veterans a chance to gain new skills and meet like-minded people.
Read moreAn exhibition of sculptures created by military veterans from Manchester opened at the Lowry Hotel on Thursday 22nd June.
12 wounded, injured and sick Service personnel from Greater Manchester joined Bravo 22, a Royal British Legion project using art to aid their recovery.
They’ve been working with professional sculptor Al Johnson, who said: “This is an exciting opportunity to take part in a creative project making life-size sculptures, and to share these very personal pieces with the public at an exhibition at the Lowry Hotel. It will be life-changing for some of them.
Read moreA blind veteran who battled a brain tumour and two bouts of meningitis is set to tackle a third 100km ultra-challenge walk for the military charity who supports him.
Darren Blanks, 30, and a father-of-two from Egremont, hopes to walk from London to Brighton in 15 hours this weekend for Blind Veterans UK, the national charity for vision-impaired ex-Service men and women.
He jokes: “I completed the 100k London to Brighton in 25 hours in 2014, but I blame sitting in the pub for too long. I want to get a faster time this year and reckon I can do the 100k in under 15 hours.”
Read moreFollowing our previous Autumn get-togethers, plans are taking shape for a Reunion for Normandy Veterans again this Autumn. This year we are planning the event in Portsmouth to be held over the weekend Friday 29th September through to Sunday 1st October.
It will commence with a get-together with a light buffet supper in the Engine Room Bar, Royal Maritime Club, Portsmouth – 1900hrs on the Friday evening 29th September.
Read moreIn a new report released today (21 June) by Swansea University and funded by the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), preliminary findings suggest UK veterans may be at an increased risk of developing gambling problems than non-veterans, and that this vulnerability may be related to prior experience of traumatic events.
The report, entitled ‘Gambling in Armed Forces Veterans: Results from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of England’, was conducted by Professor Simon Dymond and Elystan Roberts of the Department of Psychology at Swansea University, and colleagues from Bangor University, Anglia Ruskin University and Veterans NHS Wales.
Read moreSea Cadets from London, Kent and Essex had an amazing opportunity to tour casualty ship RFA Argus at the start of Seafarers Awareness Week (24-30 June), the annual campaign coordinated by maritime charity Seafarers UK.
100 young people and volunteers from Sea Cadets units in Beckenham and Penge, Bexley and Lewisham, Orpington, Southwark, Sutton, Chelmsford, Maldon and District and Thurrock visited the vessel moored at Greenwich on Monday 26 June.
Read moreAnt Middleton, an SBS veteran and presenter on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, has just been announced as an Ambassador for the Forces Charity, Give Us Time.
Rupert Forrest, Managing Director of Give us Time, said:
“I am very pleased that Ant Middleton has decided to become a Give Us Time Ambassador. Having completed three tours of active service in Afghanistan he has personal experiences which help him understand many of the difficulties experienced by our beneficiaries.”
Read moreNHS England has published information on the Contract Finder website relating to a market engagement event for the procurement of a national veterans’ mental health intensive service (VMH IS).
Building on the recent launch of the veterans’ mental health transition, liaison and intervention service, the VMH IS service will provide an enhanced service for veterans who have complex mental health problems that are attributable to military service, which have not been resolved earlier in the care/support pathway and require an intensive and assertive multi-disciplinary package of clinical and social interventions, where a military culturally-sensitive approach would assist the rapport and therapeutic outcome/s for the patient.
Read moreThe Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) hosted an event at La Mon Hotel and Country Club in Belfast on Friday (23 June) to launch two reports on veteran services in Northern Ireland (NI). Attended by 50 people, the event presented findings from the two reports, both funded by FiMT: Serving and Supporting Military Veterans in Northern Ireland, the first of several reports from the Northern Ireland Veterans’ Health and Wellbeing Study from Ulster University; and Call to Mind Northern Ireland: Findings from the Review of Veterans’ and their Families’ Mental and Related Health Needs in Northern Ireland, the last in the Call to Mind single nation report series.
Read moreThe second edition of the ‘Our Community – Our Covenant’ report was released on 26 June, commissioned by the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) working in partnership with the Local Government Association (LGA) to identify further ways to improve the local delivery of the Government’s Armed Forces Covenant.
The Second Edition is based on follow-on research that was undertaken after the release of the first report in July 2016, also carried out by Shared Intelligence. This includes a refined self-assessment toolkit, a greater focus on the London boroughs, and a report on progress since the original report was published.
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