We were delighted to welcome Jessie Owen to the Forward Assist & Salute Her UK HQ, and talk about the services we offer to veterans accessing our services. After a tour of the Forward Assist Health & Wellbeing Hub in North Tyneside she travelled to Newcastle to meet with a group of women veterans accessing the support of Salute Her UK.
Forward Assist were honoured to be invited to speak at the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill today. On the panel were Emma Norton from the Centre for Military Justice and Dame Vera Baird Victims Commissioner, who praised the work of Forward Assist and Salute Her and their joint efforts to support those veterans struggling to come to terms with the long term impact of military sexual trauma during service life. Our 2019 ethnographic research paper ‘No Man’s Land’ highlighted a significant number of women veterans for whom the military justice system had neither resolved or offered any closure in relation to bullying, harassment, sexual assault or rape. Tony made the point that the victims welfare needs to be at the centre of any military investigation and the reputation of the military should be secondary both during and after that judicial process ended.
You can watch the event by following the link below;
You can read our written evidence here:
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/23626/pdf/
Its six years since we won the Centre for Social Justice Award in 2015. Since that time we have remained true to our core values and continued to develop services that are ‘needs led’ and ‘person centred’.
We are particularly proud of our ground-breaking work developing gender specific support services for women veterans.
You can watch the video here : https://youtu.be/d1XczsPVrFI
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this research or access help with any of the issues raised please contact the Salute Her team via paula@forward-assist.com
