Veterans Outreach Support (VOS) has been awarded £766,000 of funding by the Armed Forces Covenant Trust Fund’s (AFCFT) Thrive Together programme. The money will be used to help military veterans throughout the Portsmouth area and across the south east of England. The charity offers welfare, wellbeing and mental health support to veterans, their spouses, partners and carers from the UK Armed Forces and Merchant Navy.
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00:00My name is Ian Millen, I'm the Chief Executive of Veterans Outreach Support.
00:04We're here today in the Royal Maritime Hotel for the launch of the South East
00:09of England Thrive Together portfolio which is a program to create a
00:15sustainable network for veterans across the South East of England, their families,
00:19carers and it's an outreach from here in Portsmouth from our own charity but it's
00:25funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust and we are one of ten
00:29portfolio leads around the country who have been selected to do this to cover
00:33off the the whole nation. We've been awarded almost £800,000 to do this
00:39to enable us to do this with partners across the region and really what we're
00:45looking to do is to common practice or I should say we're looking to the best
00:50practice in the common practice. So the kind of things we do here, holistic
00:54person-centered support to veterans and families and we want to
01:01just make sure that it doesn't matter where you are in the South East region
01:04that you can get the same level of support you would if you were in this
01:08great city of Portsmouth. My name is John Sivier, I'm the Chairman of
01:12Veterans Outreach Support. I've 38 years in the Royal Navy so I'm a veteran
01:20myself. Veterans Outreach Support and the Thrive Together program is extremely
01:25important to veterans both nationally and regionally because it provides that
01:32network of help and information of the network of help for the various support
01:37and often unique support services that the veteran does need. With regard to the
01:43amount of help out there it can vary, the phrase postcode lottery is
01:48banded around quite often and it does depend on where you are as to what's available. I think one of the main issues that we at BOSS
01:56encounter is the fact that veterans some of the time don't know what help is
02:02available out there and how to get it and it's the job of Veterans Outreach
02:06Support and all the other veteran charities to make them aware of what's
02:10available and through collaboration to signpost them to the best help that they
02:15can get. My name is David Yates, David Yates Jr. and I've had the privilege of being my dad's carer in later years at
02:25Cora Health. He was very active, he was a very young person at heart and he sadly just
02:32passed away recently on the 7th of February but he always focused very highly on all the BOSS
02:36activities and the veterans events. He always took the remembrance services very
02:40seriously and did his best to get to the Guildhall. He came to the activities of
02:45the BOSS program and he loved the banter and the humour, the good community spirit that he had.
02:52Whenever he went into an event he was always struck by the noise and the happy buzz of people getting together, like-minded people. I was struck by how young dad was always, if the glass is half full that's what he would say.
03:05I think he was never a complainer of people, he said he always smiled. So you can see here he's got a lovely big smile. He's surrounded by people and the BOSS helps
03:14create that opportunity where people can meet and share ideas and help control life's path.
03:20So it was great for me to do that. For example, he used to go to something called Tea and Stickies, that was in the Beck Hall at Portsmouth Cathedral on Tuesday afternoon.
03:29He used to go in, there was a buzz and a lovely atmosphere and good humour. He also went to the choir, there was a BOSS choir, a singing group, and we sang in a carol service together.
03:39He went to painting classes, he was also an artist, so he enjoyed that. He went to the D-Day commemorations, that's what this picture is about here, and he was out at the seafront waving a flag at the King when His Majesty came past.
03:54So it was a way he could carry on that esprit de corps of being in the service. He was also in the Royal Naval Medical Association because he was a sick berth attendant.
04:04He joined the Royal Navy at Collingwood and then he did his training over at Haslam, stayed there for two years, and he met my dear mum here in Portsmouth and they got married.
04:14And then he went to Plymouth, to the Naval Hospital there, and then he went to Malta, to the Naval Hospital there, and that's where I was born.
04:21And then he had to leave the Royal Navy due to medical reasons. So he left in 1966 and he ended up working in the local hospital for 35 years and then become Virgil at the local Catholic Cathedral for many years.
04:34So in later years he's still been very active at church and enjoyed coming to these kind of events, which it's good to hear this Thrive Together programme has helped him to continue that kind of good work, and he'd be thrilled.
04:47It's a go-ahead kind of story here, and the Vosk people here have invited me to become a volunteer and I'm very pleased with that, so I can keep my links with their service people, a great bunch of people.