How does Northern Learning Trust help Veterans?
Veterans’ Foundation is proud to support Northern Learning Trust in their efforts to provide training and mentoring to Veterans making the difficult transition from life in the Armed Forces to civilian life.
Northern Learning Trust provides practical help to disadvantaged people, often with complex needs to ensure that they have the opportunity to improve their lives. They do this through workshops and training which include providing basic day to day skills, training in core IT skills, volunteering to get work experience, providing a route to gaining useful qualifications for work and providing family units with the opportunity to do certain classes together. Northern Learning Trust also offers mentoring support which seeks to teach people how to overcome personal challenges that they are facing.
Veterans who are in prison, generally those coming to the end of their sentences, are given support by the Northern Learning Trust. This support focuses on providing Veterans with the skills and the confidence in their abilities that they need to live a productive life outside of the Criminal Justice System.
Northern Learning Trust provides support to Veterans in the following areas:
- Helping to reduce social isolation
- Building self-esteem and confidence
- Teaching strategies for managing stress and anxiety
- Help to find stable accommodation/housing
- Access to mental health & wellbeing support including PTSD support
- Access to drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes
- Help identifying transferable skills and matching them up to a vocation
- General education, training and employment
- Support with personal goal setting and target setting
Often, Veterans struggle with the transition from life in the British Armed Forces to civilian life. The regimented order that personnel get accustomed to in the Forces generally means that they know what to expect in the future and they can rely on certain responses to situations because of the order that is intrinsic in the Armed Forces. When Veterans leave the Armed Forces life can seem overwhelming. There are many situations they are faced with and decisions they have to make that Veterans tend not to be prepared for. Often, bad habits such as excessive drug and alcohol consumption go hand-in-hand with this transitional period due to the new pressures they are faced with.
It does not take a lot for a Veteran, fresh from years spent serving to make a few bad decisions when the pressures of their new life are laid on them. Unfortunately, prison is not an uncommon place for Veterans to end up after spending some time outside the Armed Forces.
The Northern Learning Trust is aware of the challenges faced by many Veterans and understands that with a little mentoring, building up some trust and learning some basic Veterans can turn things around and build a good civilian life for themselves.
How does Veterans’ Foundation help Northern Learning Trust?
Veterans’ Foundation provided a grant of £19,680 to Northern Learning Trust in order to provide Veterans with the training and support they need in order to carve good lives for themselves once they leave the Criminal Justice System. Veterans’ Foundation wholeheartedly supports the great work Northern Learning Trust are doing amongst Veterans in their local area.
To date, Veterans’ Foundation has provided over £4.7 million to over 270 UK military charities. We want to give more, but to do that we need your help. Please donate today or Join the National Veterans’ Lottery, the money raised in the Lottery funds life-changing support for many Veterans across the UK, please join today and be in with a chance to win £35,000 every month.
Thank you.