Mental Health

• Forces Families Support  The Forces Families Support team engage with those members of the Armed Forces community who are affected by addiction.
  

• Forces Gambling and Alcohol Support Service The aim of the Forces Alcohol and Gambling Support service (known as FLAGS) is to provide a private and confidential service to support current serving personnel who may be experiencing difficulties with alcohol and/or gambling.   
  

• RMA -The Royal Marines Charity – Alcohol Dependency and Intervention Support Services  If are part of the Royal Marines community and have an issue with any type of dependency and want some assistance, please make contact with the team and have a conversation. 

• GamCare This charity provides information, advice and support for anyone affected by gambling harms. They also operate the National Gambling Helpline, provide structured support for anyone who is harmed by gambling.
  

• Gamble Aware This is an independent charity who commission gambling harm education, prevention, early intervention and treatments across Great Britain. 
  

• National Gambling Support Network   This is a group of organisations across Great Britain that provide free, confidential and personalised support for anyone who’s experiencing harm from gambling, as well as those affected by someone else’s gambling. 

• NHS England Gambling Support Services NHS England offer gambling support clinics in various locations. 

Don’t Panic – NHS Audio Self-Help Guides

The Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust provides a wide range of mental health and learning disability services for children, young adults, adults and older adults. They have created a range of self-help guides which are designed to provide easily accessible information about common mental health difficulties, such as stress, social anxiety, panic attacks and negative thinking. These guides are all available, for free, on their website.

Action for Happiness helps people take action for a happier and kinder world.

The Camhs website was created for young people, carers and professionals to pool together lots of helpful resources from across the internet that are available to help support your mental health and well-being.

*Please note that this is not an official NHS website*

The ex-Services Mental Welfare Society, Combat Stress, is the only Services charity specialising in helping those of all ranks from the Armed Forces and the Merchant Navy suffering from psychological disability as a result of their Service.

If you’re currently serving, or have served in the UK Armed Forces, you can call the Combat Stress 24-hour Helpline to talk about mental health. If you are a family member or carer worried about a loved one or need to talk to someone yourself, you can use it too.

The Helpline is open all day, every day, offering support and advice. This is a free and confidential service. Combat Stress are there for you if you are having a tough time, have trouble sleeping, have flashbacks, get depressed, get anxious sometimes or just feel that something is not quite right.

Call 0800 138 1619 / Text 07537 404 719 / E-mail helpline@combatstress.org.uk.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is required to maintain the health and wellbeing of its people primarily to ‘deliver and support military effect’. This ensures its people can deploy on operations and remain fully employed in their day to day role. For Service Personnel, the MOD must also meet the commitment of the Armed Forces Covenant, ensuring that Armed Forces personnel and their families are not disadvantaged within wider society, either during their time in the Service or in their lives beyond the military.

The Defence People Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy aims to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our Armed Forces, their families, veterans, and civilians. It builds on five years of health and wellbeing research and activity to establish the integration of mental and physical health. It is focused on promoting positive mental health and wellbeing; preventing and detecting mental health illness; and treating such illness when it is diagnosed.

Contact is a group of charities working with the NHS and MOD. They want to make it simpler for the military community to find support for their mental wellbeing.

Heads Together was launched to change the national conversation on mental health and tackle the stigma that prevents people from getting help, alongside developing a series of new mental health initiatives.

Hidden Wounds supports thousands of men and women and their families from the Armed Forces.

Children and young people who have a parent serving in the Armed Forces often have to move around the country, and overseas, with their family. They can attend several schools too, which means having to leave friends behind and then make new ones each time. Being part of an Armed Forces family can also mean long periods of separation from their Serving parent when they are deployed, on training courses or working in a different part of the country, away from the family home.

Kooth is available for children with a parent serving in the British Armed Forces, or working for the MoD or the British Government, in the UK or overseas. It is available to children and young people aged 11 until their 19^th birthday.  It is a free, safe and anonymous mental wellbeing platform which allows young people to chat with a friendly mental health practitioner, find support from a helpful community or access a range of self-help tools.

This programme is supported by the MoD.

Visit http://kooth.com/mod for more information and to access the service.

The mental health charity, who offer advice and run support groups for those affected by mental health problems. To find your nearest MIND, please visit their website.

Recognising the signs that a child may be struggling with their mental health can be really hard. The NSPCC have got advice to help you support children who may be experiencing depression, anxiety, suicidal feelings or self-harm.

Service families living overseas may register with the Service’s Medical Centre to receive routine and emergency health care. Personnel should speak with their UPO for guidance on registering.

PAPYRUS is the national charity dedicated to the prevention of young suicide. They provide confidential support and advice to young people struggling with thoughts of suicide, and anyone worried about a young person through their helpline, HOPELINEUK.

PANDAS offer hope, empathy and support for every parent or network affected by perinatal mental illness. They offer a range of support services for you, your family and your wider network.

Having assigned to work at Hasler Company, a dedicated centre to professionally help with rehabilitation for serving personnel, as well as losing friends to suicide, Captain Ryan Morris set up Project Regain to promote early detection and help for Royal Marines who could suffer from mental health issues.

Royal Marines have the lowest rates of mental health problems within the UK Armed Services, but Regain aims to improve mental health awareness and reduce stigma. Evidence collected by the project suggested that commandos find it hard to ask for support when symptoms of illness like PTSD and depression first appear. Findings also show that lack of knowledge about mental health issues make it a hurdle to recognising a developing condition. This initiative will help Marines access treatments at the start of an issue, which can reduce the treatment timelines.

Overview of Regain

• It gives individuals access to basic education about mental health symptoms and the ways in which to seek help.
• It allows serving Royal Marines to refer themselves directly to specialists without the need to first go through their unit’s medical officer – all they need to do is pick up a phone and call the Department of Community Mental Health at Colchester (Tel: 01206 817 057/ Mil: 94660 7057) and from there they will be put straight through to a nurse who will arrange an appointment locally.
• Most Royal Marines who seek help have eight to 12 sessions of talking therapy and then carry on their careers. All the treatment provided is confidential.

Further Information

• Please visit the Royal Navy’s website for more information;
• You can watch a promotional video via YouTube.
• Read a short summary of this initiative in Homeport magazine (Summer ’19, p.32).

If you have any problems regarding well-being, please remember that RN FPS are here to support you, staffed by Service people and civilians from a variety of specialisations and offers advice, counselling and advocacy on a wide variety of issues, including mental health issues.

The Suicide prevention and peer support in the armed forces: A pocket guide by the Samaritans guide, jointly launched by Samaritans and the Ministry of Defence, gives advice on how to identify signs that someone may be having difficulties, suggests ways of offering support and gives information on where help can be found.

Navigating life as a military family can come with a hefty set of challenges and constantly changing circumstances, often out of your control. There’s no shame in prioritising your mental health and seeking a bit of extra support.

Togetherall (formally Big White Wall) is an online, anonymous, and safe support community where you can feel heard and understood. It has supported more than 16,000 members of the Armed Forces community, including family members, personnel, veterans and older Service children.

The free service has a 24/7 online community which is moderated by clinical professionals. There are subgroups you can join to connect in smaller spaces on topics that matter to you, and they also have a military specific group and one for parents and care-givers, where you can share experiences, and get support.

Young Minds are leading the national charity for children and young people’s mental health. They have a helpline for parents and lots of useful information on their website.