Help for Heroes has become known and loved throughout the UK for its central role in supporting injured service men and women rebuild their lives as they return to civilian society. NR Times speaks to its head of clinical services, Carol Betteridge, to find out more about its life-changing work.
When service men and women sustain injuries – whether physical or psychological – frequently a main supporter in their recovery is Help For Heroes.
The charity has supported more than 25,000 people to date, including those who have sustained some of the most serious, complex and life-changing injuries imaginable in conflict.
Currently, the charity is working with 21 of the most critically injured UK service personnel in supporting them to rebuild their lives as people with complex injuries in a civilian world.
And enabling them to move on with their lives is what Help For Heroes is committed to achieving, enabling access to the bespoke support and rehabilitation they need to do that.
“We work with veterans with injuries of all kinds, including the most serious neurological and complex injuries and amputations,” says Carol Betteridge, head of clinical services at Help For Heroes.
“We try and help veterans get back to normality. It’s difficult when you leave service anyway, but with an injury as well, you can lose a lot of confidence and not want to socialise. We want their lives to be the best they can be, although it might not be the life they had planned.
“We don’t want to rescue people – we want to enable and empower them, and that’s really important to us, that they are in charge of what happens to them and have the decisions over their goals. That in itself helps.
“We’ve got veterans who were injured ten years ago and we’re still supporting them, so we regularly support people for the long term. We’re not here to replace statutory services, or the NHS or someone’s GP, but we can help liaise between them.
“It’s a huge difference when coming out of the forces, when you have your housing, medical and dental care all in place – but then you leave and that ends too.
“If someone has been very seriously injured, then the MoD might help with housing adaptations or in buying some specialised equipment, but it’s an ongoing situation, and there may need to be further adaptations later on, or their needs may change – it’s about providing the right support at the right time, and that’s where we come in.”
In addition to the complex life-changing physical injury support offered by Help For Heroes, psychological support for veterans is equally important.
“Most members of the armed forces have a very robust ethos through their military training which helps them to get through the difficult times, but for some they need more extensive support,” says Carol.
“Mental health has always been a very big concern for our veteran community. In some cases, they may have lost friends through the circumstances which caused their injury, and to see your friends lose their lives in circumstances of conflict far from home has a huge psychological impact.
“The hidden wounds of our service men and women can be very deep, and we’re absolutely here to support them in dealing with those.”
To enable Help For Heroes to support its veterans as best they can, they have established their own in-house case management service, with support from AJ Case Management.
“We had a team of welfare key workers within Help For Heroes but we realised that veterans were sometimes being bounced around from place to place when seeking external support – so we decided to up-skill our existing welfare workers to work as case managers, so we can help our veterans directly to achieve the outcomes they want,” says Carol.
“AJ Case Management were great in helping us to up-skill our team in this way, and we can now work as part of Multi Disciplinary Case Conferences to case manage our veterans’ situations. It was a very good piece of work and one that is making a big difference to us.”
As with every charity, Help For Heroes has keenly felt the effects of the pandemic. Online sessions have become the go-to over the past year in place of traditional face to face meetings, and financial resources have been redirected to ensure its frontline support can continue for the veterans who need it.
Its Recovery College courses – designed specifically for wounded veterans and families to help them identify their ambitions and gain the confidence, knowledge and understanding to achieve them – have also been taken online, enabling the empowerment they offer to participants to continue unaffected by the pandemic.
“The past year has undeniably been difficult but we’ve maintained the support during the pandemic for our veterans who need us,” says Carol.
“Every day, five members of the armed forces are medically discharged. Not all of them need our support, but it can be hard to transition into civilian life and if they need our support, we’ll be there.
“We’ve mainly adjusted from face to face to virtual meetings, but if we’ve felt it’s needed and there has been consent, then we have done some face to face meetings with all of the necessary safety measures.
“The use of virtual technology has helped us to reach the hardest to reach veterans, those who live in the Highlands and Islands and other very remote places, but for all that technology has been good, it can be hard for people with brain injuries to understand why there can’t be face to face contact, but we’ve done all we can to keep in touch and reassure them.
“The Recovery College has been really important during the pandemic and has helped many of our veterans with the self-help techniques around sleep, anxiety and breathing, and many have found it really helpful. If they do that but then need support, then we’d be there for a one-to-one session, but often that was the support they needed to take it forward themselves, now that they knew how to help themselves.
“We’ve organised virtual get togethers with groups, so they can still have that social interaction, and they’ve really responded to each other. There’s been some great banter, and that is what has been missed.”
As a result of the pandemic, but also to enable Help For Heroes to adopt a more locally-focused approach going forward, the charity is scaling back the use of its centres in favour of support within veterans’ own communities.
“The cost of maintaining these centres is really high so we haven’t been using them, we’ve had to redirect our resources to ensure we continued to offer the frontline services which were so badly needed,” says Carol.
“We’re doing a lot more home visits, it is important to visit our veterans in their home environment and community, and we’re developing our clinical team to be more community-based. They are both things we’re focusing on at present.
“We will try to identify what’s available for them in their own surroundings, rather than getting them to come to centres which could be miles away, and find the local hubs which could provide the support for them.
“We’re looking at a blended delivery of meetings and local support, which we hope will work well. The months ahead are being looked at carefully, but what is certain is that our support for those who need us won’t end. We’ll always be there for our veterans.”
