Funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust (AFCFT), the Woman Veterans Project was developed by an all-female team at Tom Harrison House and Salute Her UK. The team, which had lived experience of addiction, poor mental health and military service, designed an abstinence-based programme of addiction support for both women veterans and those still serving, and took full account of the individual challenges armed forces women faced when trying to seek help on their journey to recovery from addiction and poor mental health.

The implementation of an abstinence-based recovery-focused programme enabled women to access essential support and build peer networks with other female armed forces beneficiaries immediately upon engagement with the project. This demonstrated that it is possible to make recovery available for all armed forces women wherever they are in their journey towards recovery.

Following an evaluation of the project by University of Chester, a commissioning toolkit was developed. This toolkit will provide guidance on a
range of addiction and recovery services focused on armed forces women, especially for health, housing and criminal justice providers, as well as commissioners and funders.

Please click the video link to view key features of the toolkit.