Charity Overview
The Royal Air Forces (RAF) Association is one of the leading providers of welfare assistance to the RAF community, providing support to serving and former-serving RAF personnel and their families. RAF serving personnel, veterans and their families make significant sacrifices for their country in pursuit of the RAF’s mission to prevent conflict, protect our skies and deliver aid to those in need. The most obvious sacrifices are loss of life or health. But all members of the RAF community also sacrifice the normal life most people take for granted. The charities vision is to ensure that their sacrifice does not result in suffering, poverty, loneliness or isolation.
Project Summary
Funding from ICAP Charity Day 2019 has enabled the RAF Association to deliver much needed mental wellbeing courses to the RAF community, under the banner of ‘Finding it Tough?’. Initially developed as a face-to-face training course, the Association quickly adapted its course to be ‘online ready’ when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK ensuring the RAF community were still able to access essential tools to improve mental wellbeing and resilience at a time when it was needed the most.
I have never discussed my mental health with anyone other than my doctor, but after this course I discussed it with my husband.RAFA Participant
The course has been designed to teach participants 6 habits to develop for better resilience, specifically tailored to suit the struggles faced by those in the military community which are often different to those faced outside of the RAF community. From January to March 2020, 11 face to face sessions were delivered with 75 people attending. After COVID lockdown restrictions were put in place, the course quickly adapted to running online and 114 online sessions were delivered between April and December 2020 with 479 people attending.
It was a really positive course and I came away from it feeling good about myself and that I can help myself be a better person and help others that might need my support. Overall I thought the course was brilliant.RAFA Participant
I thoroughly enjoyed the entire course. Good level of interaction and engagement.RAFA Participant
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