The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund has teamed up with the RFEA – The Forces Employment Charity to form a new Wellbeing and Employment Pathway, set up to support selected RAF veterans enhance their civilian life.
The voluntary scheme is focussed on beneficiaries who have been in an RAF Benevolent Fund Housing Trust property for a number of years. It offers participants the opportunity to enhance their life skills with one-to-one support from a specialist vocational advisor, who can assist them in achieving beneficial outcomes including improved confidence and self-belief, enhanced communication skills, meaningful training or education and for some, part or potentially fulltime employment.
Philip Wiles, Head of Housing and Care at the RAF Benevolent Fund, said:
“As the RAF’s leading welfare charity, the RAF Benevolent Fund continues to expand its Spectrum of Care. We have run our Housing Trust for over thirty years. This is pivotal to us providing suitable accommodation for – primarily – Wounded, Injured or Sick veterans at the point of exiting the RAF, who have a significant level of disability that was likely to be prejudicial to long term employment.
“In more recent years, service leavers with similar levels of disability have benefitted from a much improved recovery pathway across the services, which includes life skills courses and training for meaningful activity and employment.
“Recognising this environmental change, the RAF Benevolent Fund is now delighted to be working with RFEA to retrospectively fill the gap for our working age housing trust veterans who had previously missed out on a recovery pathway opportunity. We wholeheartedly believe in the positive benefits the pathway can have on those who take part and will be measuring the impact of this important new strand of work.”
Chloe Mackay, RFEA Chief Operating Officer, said:
“We are very pleased to have secured the chance to make a real difference to the lives of the RAFBF Housing Trust beneficiaries. In April, we will look to launch the Wellbeing and Employment Pathway Project on behalf of the RAF Benevolent Fund and this will form part of a ‘recovery pathway’ and positive outcomes for the lives of Wounded, Injured and Sick Housing Trust service leavers. In 2015/16 we supported 20,000 veterans. There are 1 million working age veterans in the UK, we know how important it is to deliver programmes such as this to make an even bigger difference.”
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For more information please contact Lee Krawczyk, Public Relations Officer on 020 7307 3305 or email lee.krawczyk@rafbf.org.uk
Notes to editors
About the RAF Benevolent Fund: The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund is the RAF’s leading welfare charity, providing financial, practical and emotional support to serving and former members of the RAF, as well as their partners and dependants. We help members of the RAF family with everything from disability, injury, financial hardship and youth support to living independently and providing dignity in retirement. In 2016, we helped over 61,000 people and spent £20 million doing so. We largely work in partnership with other organisations to achieve our aims.
For more information visit: www.rafbf.org Twitter: www.twitter.com/RAFBF
