PTSD Resolution Pub Hub: Helping UK Services Veterans in the Community

PTSD Resolution Pub Hub is a new pub-based initiative to help former members of the armed forces in the community, according to the organisers PTSD Resolution. The charity has a network of 250 therapists that provide help to services’ veterans and reservists suffering from military trauma to reintegrate into normal work and family life. 

PTSD Resolution Pub Hub focuses on pubs as centres of community life – those participating in the scheme raise awareness locally of military PTSD and the charity and also host fund-raising events. The pubs offer veterans social contact in a sympathetic setting, say the organisers, and provide information on local services by Resolution Networks’ trained therapists, as well as employers, housing and services’ charities.

PTSD Resolution Network is now in talks with breweries to roll the programme out across the country: the scheme can also increase ‘footfall’ for publicans, according to Jim Woolley, the first publican to participate in the programme. He is landlord at the Hare Inn in Southcote, Bedfordshire, and has galvanised local residents and charities to help veterans, many of whom have become jobless and homeless.

Amongst those helped is a former part-time soldier traumatised by a tour of duty with the Royal Artillery in Iraq, who had been sleeping rough but now has his own flat. Another veteran, aged 70, has also been helped: he fought in Aden in the Sixties, and says he can finally talk about his experiences, following treatment by a local Resolution Network therapist.

The emphasis of Pub Hub is on compassionate support in a community setting, with a focus on reintegration and helping to re-establish veterans’ independence. The goal is to address the practical issues of mental health and social needs, as well as help with finding work and a home, where required.

The commercial benefit for publicans is from the additional revenue resulting from new customers in an extended catchment area who want to support the initiative for veterans – or just want to participate in the programme of pub entertainments. Events can be timed successfully to increase trade particularly during periods when business traditionally is slow, such as in January, or early in the working week

www.ptsdresolution.org PTSD Resolution Network, Meadow Cottage, Poundfield Road, Chalvington, BN27 3TH

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