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Welcome to our final newsletter. 

As the Female Veterans Transformation Programme (FVTP) draws towards its closure and handover to the WRAC Association on 7th September, we want to take a moment to update you.

We’d like to reassure you that our toolkit and e-learning will remain available for years to come. Our programme closure is not the end, just the end of this chapter, and the next one starts with you.

What will you do next to support women who’ve served?

If you are a veteran, what opportunities and support can you signpost your oppos to?

This newsletter scratches the surface but there are many examples of ‘what good looks like’ together with signposting in our toolkit.

Throughout spring and into summer, our team delivered in-person training sessions right across the country, introducing the Female Veterans Toolkit to organisations who work with and support the armed forces community.

The sessions brought together representatives from all sectors, including multiple NHS trusts, military and civilian charities, local authorities and statutory services.

Our final in-person session took place at East Durham Veterans Trust, one of the new Office for Veterans' Affairs VALOUR centres. This session brought together representatives from across the sector, including HM Prison and Probation Service, Health Squad, DMWS, the NHS, The Rifles, Pioneering Care Partnership, Healthwatch County Durham, Anxious Minds, and Veterans UK a real testament to how far this work has reached.

As always, the training sparked great discussion and consistently shown us just how much appetite there is across the sector to better understand and support female veterans.

We've also had the opportunity to represent FVTP at wider events. On Reserves Day, the team attended Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, where we had the pleasure of speaking with the Minister for the Armed Forces, Louise Sandher-Jones MP once again. The Minister was present for our Toolkit launch back in November and, as a veteran herself, has continued to recognise the importance of this work.

Alongside our bespoke training, we ran a series of Lunch & Learn sessions, a shorter, more informal way for busy teams and individuals to learn about the Toolkit and why it exists.

Delivered online, these sessions were designed to fit around people's working days, making it easier for organisations to engage without needing to commit to a full training day. They sparked some brilliant conversations about how the Toolkit can be practically applied within different services and organisations and gave people space to ask questions, relay their lived experiences and offer valuable feedback.

Over our Lunch & Learn sessions running from March to June, we had 120 people attend the online sessions. In addition, we have delivered over 20 bespoke online packages to a multitude of organisations including DWP, CTP, multiple NHS trusts, SSAFA, the Centre for Military Women’s Research, RAFA, multiple city and county councils, and more.

For anyone who missed a training session or Lunch & Learn or prefers to learn in their own time, our e-Learning platform is now live and freely available - and will be available for a good few years if anyone wants to refresh their memory in the future:

🔗 https://female-veterans.covenantfund.org.uk/

This has been a brilliant addition to the programme, meaning the Toolkit and its learning are no longer limited to a set date or location. Individuals and organisations can now access the training whenever suits them, at their own pace.

Now: Our Evaluation Phase
Our evaluation phase is our chance to properly understand the impact this programme has had; what's worked well; what we've learnt along the way; and how the Toolkit and training can continue to make a difference long after our programme closes..

We invite you to take part in our evaluation survey. Whether you've attended a training session, joined a Lunch & Learn, completed the eLearning, or used the Toolkit within your organisation, we'd be so grateful if you could share your feedback. It only takes a few minutes:

The deadline : Monday 10th August 0900.

🔗https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSceXn4QVfEPutYFEqOK5wcqzFr21fI5Br4T-NGw14scUic5mw/viewform?usp=header

If you know colleagues or contacts who have also engaged with us, please feel free to share this invitation with them too. As many of you work in organisations funded through charitable grants and donations, your feedback will help demonstrate the programme's impact and may also help inform future funding decisions.

Please contact rialuke@fvtp.org.uk if you have any concerns accessing the form.

Women veterans' experiences matter, and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA) want to hear from you! Whether you served 5 months or 50 years ago, your insight can help shape the future of support for women across the armed forces community.

The OVA are establishing a Women Veterans Forum and applications are now open. It's part of the UK Government's Veterans Strategy.

The OVA are looking for women who served in the UK Armed Forces in the Regulars or Reserves, to bring their lived experience to the table - and they want as diverse a representation as possible, no matter your age, length of service, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, officer or other rank, they want

If you'd like to help make a difference for current and future generations of women veterans, click the link below:

🔗 https://apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/roles/9497

This is only the beginning… There are fantastic organisations which are continuing to support ex-servicewomen, and we thought we’d mention the work of the WRAC Association - The Servicewomen’s Charity.

Membership to the WRAC Association isn’t limited to those who served in the WRAC – or in the Army at all. Membership is free to all women who served or who are still serving including our RAF/WRAF and RN/WRNS/RM women (including Nurses, Reservists etc).

🔗 Sign up here: https://wracassociation.org.uk/join/

We’d also like to take this opportunity to highlight two further organisations that may be of interest to women who’ve served:

Female Veterans Alliance

🔗 https://www.femaleveteransalliance.org/

An organisation which connects female veterans UK-wide through wellbeing retreats, day trips and amazing events like their Christmas Glitterball - follow them on Facebook and/or LinkedIn to be kept up to date with the latest opportunities.

Sisters in Service

🔗 https://www.sistersinservice.org.uk/

A peer support network for women veterans in healthcare - NHS and beyond. They host meet ups and events in person and online and have funded professional coaching to members.

We’ve worked closely with both organisations throughout this programme and believe that they will continue to grow and support even more ex-forces women than they have already!

None of this would have been possible without the organisations, individuals, and partners who shared best practice, engaged with us, and championed our work within their own networks.

As we prepare to close the programme at the beginning of September, we're incredibly proud of what's been built.

Thank you to everyone who has taken part, trained, learned, and shared their experiences, we're confident that its legacy will continue well beyond our handover to WRAC Association.

Thank you for being part of the journey - from all of us at FVTP: Liza, Stacey and Ria, and our fantastic Steering Group: Paula, Ali, Amanda, Nicky, Jane and Ellie.