Published on: 7th November 2023
We’re making good progress on our advancing mental health equalities project to support women military veterans.
The project aims to reach more women who could benefit from support from our Military Veterans' Service, which is a psychological therapies service for British armed forces veterans across Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
Alie Salford, who lead on the project, explains:
“The military is approximately 13 percent women, but only 5 percent of referrals to our services were women – and most weren’t staying the course.
“Some ex-service women don’t associate themselves as veterans, so we want to raise awareness and make veteran a broader term.”
“We’ve done lots of work to reach out via children’s services, social prescribers, women’s charities and the Department for Work and Pensions - now around 12 percent of our referrals are women, with most staying the course.
“Some of these referrals are coming later than we’d like, so our next step is to encourage people to refer for support earlier. We also want to get more lived experience and peer support involved in developing the service.”
If you have served in the British armed forces and could use support, please visit our Military Veterans' Sevice page for more info.
Pictured: Colleagues from the service on a recent trip to London to present their quality improvements to the Royal College of Psychiatrists.