The Veterans’ Places, Pathways & People
The VPPP programme will award 10 grants to portfolios of projects, which work regionally to develop support for veterans.
VPPP Scotland
The Scottish Veterans Wellbeing Alliance
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VPPP Region by Region
Portfolio lead – NHS Lothian
The Scottish Veteran’s Wellbeing Alliance has attracted organisations from across the country to pool resources and play to the strengths of each organisation. The Alliance has been awarded a grant of £800,000 from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, Veterans, Places, Pathways & People programme.
Member Organisations of VPPP Scotland
- Combat Stress https://combatstress.org.uk/
- Community Veterans Support https://www.communityveteranssupport.org/
- Cyrenians http://www.cyrenians.org/
- Defence Medical Welfare Service https://dmws.org.uk/
- Edinburgh Napier University https://www.napier.ac.uk/
- ERMAC https://www.erskine.org.uk/
- Fares4Free https://www.fares4free.org/
- Fighting with Pride https://www.fightingwithpride.org.uk/
- Horseback UK https://horseback.org.uk/
- Lothians Veterans Centre https://www.lvc.scot/
- NHS Lothian https://www.nhslothian.scot/
- Rock2Recovery https://www.rock2recovery.co.uk/
- SAMH https://www.samh.org.uk/
- Scottish Veterans Residences https://www.svronline.org/
- SSAFA https://www.ssafa.org.uk/
- Stand Easy https://standeasy.org.uk/
- Thistle Foundation https://www.thistle.org.uk/
- Veterans Scotland http://www.veteransscotland.co.uk/
- Walking with the Wounded https://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/
The project lead Dr Linda Irvine Fitzpatrick commented that, ‘As a modern alliance we have a clear message both to our beneficiaries and our project partners, you don’t have to do everything, we are greater than the sum of our parts and working collaboratively is efficient, informative and puts the needs of beneficiaries up front and central.’
She added that, ‘The alliance has already delivered shared knowledge between its members and has an inclusive style, with everybody’s contribution being valued.
Learning from past projects and tapping into the plethora of feedback, the alliance organisations have been able to ‘peek behind the curtain’ of needs, for example, Linda notes that ‘if someone needs support with their mental health there may be other factors that have to be sorted out before we address their mental health needs, it could be support with housing or finances or whatever.
It’s vitally important to make sure that beneficiaries are ready to receive and able to make best use of support offered, it’s the best way of giving people the best chance of success. This is the key to the alliance; each organisation can deliver their specialism. By consolidating some of the learning the vision is that ‘this will be the way we work in the future.
Inviting veterans and their families to engage with all that the alliance has to offer is at the top of the ‘to do’ list and how people are invited in is seen as a very important step, the welcome that people receive focus’ on ‘How can we help you?’ – after all, people generally know what they need, it’s just sometimes tricky to take that first step.’
Social Media – The Scottish Veterans Wellbeing Alliance