NHS Kent and Medway’s Mental Health Commissioning Service have commissioned an Ex-Military Personnel Mental Health Project in order to make mental health care more accessible for ex service personnel. Ex - military personnel have a higher risk of mental health problems including drug and alcohol problems due to their experiences in the services, and the need for mental health support to ex service personnel and their families is expected to significantly increase following the planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the 20, 000 redundancies signalled in the Defence Review.

The Counselling Team Ltd, Rethink Mental Illness and CRI Drug and Alcohol Services are seeking to identify people working in mental health services and other interested individuals for;

• training in the military mind set and culture in order to become a Veterans Mental Health Champion within your organisation
• EMDR and CBT clinical supervision for therapists interested in becoming a Veterans’ Therapist for your organisation

Everyone and anyone connected with providing Mental Health services, or interested in contributing to the mental health of Veterans is welcome, - we need your help. You don’t have to be directly involved with Mental Health and you don’t need to be a health and social care professional. All that is required is a commitment to helping Veterans access services. You might simply be a person that points them in the right direction.

How can you get involved?

Please email [email protected] and tell her 3 things:

1. That you are interested in the first stage of becoming an identified Veterans Champion

2. If you would like to attend the Military Mind-set training, - (please tell us if you have already completed such a training or have relevant experience that might make this unnecessary for you)

3. If you are interested in being included in professional Veterans Support google map.