North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll Visits Forward Assist HQ

We were delighted to host a visit from North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll to show him around our Veterans Health & Wellbeing Hub based in the the John Willie Sams Centre.

Jamie Driscoll was elected as the first ever North of Tyne Mayor in May 2019. He heads up the North of Tyne Combined Authority and, together with the six local authority Cabinet members, is accountable for its activity. As North of Tyne Mayor, Jamie is committed to driving forward his manifesto pledges around community wealth building, addressing the climate emergency, revitalising life in local communities, building affordable homes and delivering lifelong learning for the people North of Tyne.

Mayor Driscoll had the opportunity to meet a few of the veterans that access the centre and they talked about how the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had impacted on their mental health and wellbeing. Like the rest of the UK we are working hard to be ‘covid compliant’ and hope to open up both Salute Cafe and the veterans and families ‘Drop In’ plus the usual weekly activities that improve mental and physical wellbeing at the end of June 2021.

We believe veterans are the communities greatest untapped asset and our veteran led community activities enable many to live lives filled with passion, purpose , commitment whilst being of service to others.

Thanks to a little funding acquired in 2020, we will also be employing more staff in the next few months to further develop our services for Women Veterans and Military Families. Hopefully our community based activities and skills in helping veterans and they families get ready for the employment market and sustain employment will in some small way, facilitate an economic recovery for both the region and local community who access the multi-disciplinary social care teams working within the John Willie Sams Community Centre. The next two years look like being a difficult but exciting time as we try to adjust to the ‘post covid’ normal. As always, veterans and being of service to the wider community, will be at the centre of our ‘soldier to citizen’ support service.