The Female Veteran

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Welcome to our September newsletter! Thank you to everyone for your amazing response to this programme. We are so grateful to everyone who has taken time to complete our questionnaire and have loved carrying on the conversation with you in our focus groups. Do get in touch if there is anything we can do to help you!

Out and about talking to you!

Our focus groups have continued to yield great conversations! Our online focus groups have proved to be extremely popular, with more dates being added. We have a few coming up at the end of September and throughout October.

Watch this space and keep an eye on our social media channels and webpage for more opportunities to come and join the conversation.

Click on the links above to find out more, sign up to forthcoming focus groups or read about the focus groups we’ve already held.

This map represents all the locations we have been (green), will be (red) and have linked events for our focus groups. We’ve been busy!

Beyond our focus groups, we have been trying to meet as many of you as possible through different initiatives and events involving female veterans.

We have been presenting at the NHS Veteran Aware conference in Liverpool, the Edinburgh Napier conference, and got stuck in to the Army Welfare Services SW Allied Services Table and Stands Event in Corsham.

If there’s something you think we should be at, then do let us know and we’ll do our best to be there (although remember there are just two of us!).

Introducing our new Steering Group

At a productive Steering Group meeting in August, we shared initial findings from your questionnaire responses. We're working together for:

- Greater awareness that women served

- Better access to services to meet needs

- Educating providers on the specific needs of women veterans.

We are looking forward to sharing the findings with you too soon - keep an eye on our channels (and our website: http://fvtp.org.uk).

After this first meeting, we wanted to introduce you to the inspiring women on the team!

Read about our members here

That’s enough about us and our partners, what about you? We envisage this newsletter as championing the needs of female veterans and we want to use this space to showcase female veterans whether as authors, in history, the news and in research. Please get in touch if there is something you would like to share in a future edition. You can email hannahwest@fvtp.org.uk.

We’d particularly like to hear from female veterans who would like to share a short feature about what they do post service whether that is volunteering, running a business or starting a new career (whether it is similar too what they did in service or completely different)!

Women Veteran-Owned Business Spotlight: Laura-Faye Fitness

Laura is Ex-RAF and an Ex-Military Transformation Coach at Laura-Faye Fitness.

‘After 11 years service as an RAF engineer who struggled my way through fitness in my career, I decided to become a coach to help women both serving and veterans to get the advice and coaching they need to actually get to their goals.

Being in a male dominated job with not everyone who wants to necessarily engage in being the healthiest and fittest, I really believe I can help change that and give the coaching, the service and the community that I wish I had when I was serving and when I left whilst still being able to enjoy the social life that military life brings.’

Read more about her journey, business and fitness tips here!

Researcher spotlight: Victoria Sutch

Victoria Sutch is a PhD candidate at Cardiff University, conducting research into the gendered implications of military service in Women Veterans in the UK. She is also currently interning here with us at the Female Veterans Transformation Programme!

Learn more about her research here.

Female veterans in history, Forgotten Heritage: The NavyWomen Project

Image Credit: Heidi Secker/ the NavyWomen Project.

In 2017, the 100th anniversary of the Women’s Royal Naval Service prompted Heidi Secker to document a few stories of women who had served and post them on a dedicated social media page. The NavyWomen Project was born, and has continued!

Read on to discover the evolution of the project in Secker’s own words here.

Veteran Centred News

Get involved in research

Click on the screenshot below to reach our webpage to learn more about these studies and how you can get involved!

‘A pioneering multi-disciplined team of researchers from Northumbria University and Imperial College London has received funding for a novel study that will explore biological, psychological and social factors associated with brain health in female military veterans’

Three researchers’, Dr Tamlyn Watermever (Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology), Dr Paul Ansdell (Assistant Professor of Physiology) and Dr Chi Udeh-Momoh (a Neuroendochinologist) have been awarded funding from the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA) to carry out this research.

We are Hiring!

We are expanding and restructuring our team and looking for a new Communications and Engagement Lead. Check out the job description here and consider applying. We look forward to hearing from you! Please share widely with your networks.