How do Links help UK Veterans?
The Veterans’ Foundation is delighted to provide mental health charity Links with funding.
Based in Carmarthenshire, Wales, Links specialises in providing mental health support to adults in their local area.
Operating for 25 years, Links has been providing support to those who struggle to access the private mental health support they need.
The latest Veterans' Foundation grant will help the charity facilitate the support of British veterans in the area.
Links carry out a variety of veteran-specific activities in order to give the best support they can. These activities include NAAFI style meetings and individual support to access welfare and benefits.
There is also a befriending scheme that seeks to pair up veterans who would benefit from forming new friendships with other veterans who have perhaps found themselves in similar situations when adapting back to civilian life.
The core aims of the Links Veterans Combined Forces Project are:
- To reduce isolation by meeting up with others with similar experiences and military backgrounds.
- To assist with the transition into civvy street
- To provide support with any mental ill-health local Veterans may be experiencing
- To teach new skills, build confidence and self-esteem
- To support with moving back into work
- Signposting to other organisations who may be able to help Veterans
The charity can help anyone who has served in the military, family members of a veteran and all Blue Light service personnel.
Links had this to say about the grant they have now received: “Thank you very much for your support and for the grant that we received from the Veterans Foundation last year. It is already making a huge difference to Links on the Combined Forces Veterans Project”
Links CEO, Michele Rees said: “Through the funding from Veterans’ Foundation we are now able to provide a much needed practical and holistic approach to supporting our community of veterans with their mental health recovery and social needs. Work is already underway and we are making such a positive difference to so many people, through what is an extremely difficult time for us all. Thank you so much from the whole team at Links!”
In addition to the wider work the Veterans’ Foundation grant has enabled, Links is proud it is able to support a specific activity that has helped raise the spirits of many of the veteran members.
One of the veterans affiliated with the charity travelled to the Falklands in October 2020 and kindly offered to take a gift made by and on behalf of the veterans linked to the charity. He presented the framed model of an aeroplane which was made by our veterans, to the Falklands Community Psychiatric Nurse, who will now take the gift on a tour of all the civilian and military departments before it is put on display in the Medical Centre.
This is seen as a significant step for the charity’s veterans as it connects them to a place that many of them have served and been posted to (including the veteran who presented the gift).
Michele went on to say: “The grant from Veterans’ Foundation has ensured that we have been able to fund our Combined Forces Project Coordinator role in which we have been able to support our veteran members through these very uncertain times (Covid-19).
“We have provided virtual coffee mornings twice a week and our rural and non-tech savvy veterans have received weekly buddy phone calls. Some of these calls have been invaluable as we have been able to pick up on new veteran needs such as much needed food deliveries and difficulties coping with isolation and we have been able to put things in place to resolve these matters quickly.”
To help Veterans’ Foundation continue supporting the veterans who need our help across the country please consider donating today or sign up to join the Veterans’ Lottery and support veterans whilst also being in with the chance to win £35,000 every month.
Thank You
