The fight against isolation
Our army of healthcare workers and support staff are being deployed across the UK on a mission to defeat loneliness and isolation in the veteran community.
In the UK today veterans and their families are struggling with painful injuries, mental trauma, loneliness, isolation, sleepless nights, disability, inaccessible homes, and poverty.
This is the Veterans War.
It’s a war forgotten by many. But not by us.
Our mission is to ensure that everyone in the UK Armed Forces community lives well after service, and no one is left behind in the Veterans War.
Veterans are no longer in the headlines. But their daily struggles are no less challenging. Demand for our support services is increasing. In our 2021/22 financial year, we helped eight per cent more veterans and family members than we did the year before.
Although demand is increasing, our new research showed a 1.1 million drop in people donating to military charities compared to 5 years ago*.
On average, four people are medically discharged from the Armed Forces every day in the UK. And that can be when the toughest battle of all begins.
729,000 veterans find their mental health challenging**
source: YouGov, 2022We discovered 261,000 veterans feel lonely**. Isolated and adrift from a society they served to protect. Many feel they’ve lost their identity.
People are in pain, living with physical and mental wounds that need expert care to heal.
Many veterans are living with chronic pain, for years. For some, like Vicki, the battle continues.
Sometimes it can be years, or even decades, before a veteran or family member reaches out for the help they desperately need.
What we’re doing about it
We must not let anyone fight the Veterans War alone.
At Help for Heroes, we provide life-changing support to veterans, their families and those who served under UK Command.
It doesn’t matter where or when someone served. Or how long they served for. It doesn’t matter if their injury or illness isn’t directly because of their time in service.
If someone from the UK Armed Forces community needs us, we’re here for them. And we’re determined to be here for them for as long as they need us.
We are here for our Armed Forces community for as long as they need us - Help for Heroes
With your support we can help more veterans and their families access counselling so they can finally find peace of mind. We can help people have the care they need to manage their physical pain.
We can lift people out of social isolation and help them feel part of a community once more. We help people get into and around their homes. We’ve helped people walk again. Talk again. Eat again. We help people live independently and face their future with confidence.
But we can’t do any of this without you.
Together we can help people win this war. We can help people feel that life is worth living again.
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*YouGov Profiles (Dec’17 vs Dec’22) 12 months dataset. 'Which, if any, of the following causes have you donated to over the past **three months**? Please select all that apply.'
**Research conducted by YouGov Plc into mental health and suicide in the GB adult population and the Armed Forces Community. July 2022, total sample size of 8346 adults (455 veterans)