Legion Scotland today launched a new wellbeing service for ex-servicemen and women in Edinburgh.
The befriending service will provide support and advice to ex servicemen and women from Edinburgh after they leave the Royal Navy, Army, or Royal Air Force.
Scotland’s biggest veteran’s membership charity has set up the new national service as a first point of contact to help veterans of all ages and backgrounds to settle back into civilian life.
There are some 410,000 veterans in Scotland, almost 8% of the population. Legion Scotland’s wellbeing service will provide friendship, advice and connect veterans into local services that can help them cope with changes after leaving military life.
The new service, which was awarded £10,000 funding from the Scottish Government’s Scottish Veterans Fund, will also offer veterans the chance to benefit from the charity’s comradeship activities and free wellbeing and pensions support.
Falklands Veteran and entrepreneur Tony Banks welcomed the service. He said, “It’s important that when you leave service the support is there. It’s not easy to get back to civilian life and ex servicemen and women need to know that it’s okay to ask for help. So many men and women who come out of service have to adapt to life with a number of different issues.
The sooner veterans can get help after leaving service the better.”
The launch of the wellbeing service comes as the charity announced its new brand Legion Scotland as part of a drive to modernise and better meet the changing needs of the ex-service community whether they served 50 years ago or yesterday.
Stephen Baird, National Wellbeing Coordinator at Legion Scotland, said:-“The new Wellbeing Service will be a soft landing pad in the local community at a critical time for ex servicemen and women and their families. It will provide advice, support and friendship that can be really important at that time when you leave all the support systems you are used to. And through the service we will link veterans to local services they need such as housing, employment and health.
“We will also be working closely with local authorities and other services and charities to make sure the best level of advice, information and support is provided. It’s about helping Scotland’s ex servicemen and women to get on with their life.”
Kevin Gray MM CEO of Legion Scotland said, “Legion Scotland has been helping veterans for over 90 years since we set up to help veterans who were in need after WWI. In this centenary year of the outbreak of WWI we are now launching this new service to better serve today’s Scottish ex-service community and their families.”
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