The latest Newsletter from FANDF with a focus on the biennial conference is now available
Generic and local information for the UK Military community including Serving Personnel, Families, Veterans, and MOD Civilians.
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The latest Newsletter from FANDF with a focus on the biennial conference is now available
Information regarding the move from Tax Credits to Universal Credits (UC) is now available online.
Employers that have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme
This document lists the employers that have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme, and their status (committed, employer or leader) to end of July 2023.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is reminding bereaved parents to check their eligibility for financial support. In February 2023 the government extended eligibility for Bereavement Support Payment and Widowed Parent’s Allowance to cohabiting parents with dependent children. The benefits are designed to help with the financial impact of losing a partner.
Previously these benefits were only available to eligible bereaved parents who were married or in a civil partnership, but the law was changed to make it fairer to children.
When DWP extended eligibility in February 2023, it opened a 12-month window for cohabiting parents to backdate their claims. This means parents whose partner died before 9 February 2023 have until 8 February 2024 to claim. After this, it will not be possible to claim Widowed Parent’s Allowance and parents will not get their full entitlement to a backdated payment of Bereavement Support Payment
The last month has been an exciting one across the Armed Forces space; after much hard work and with support from our Armed Forces Patient and Public Voice Group, we were pleased to rename the Veterans Trauma Network (VTN), Op RESTORE: The Veterans Physical Health and Wellbeing Service in the lead up to Armed Forces day.
We have also been working with colleagues piloting the single point of contact service for the Armed Forces community and following a period of engagement, this has been renamed Op COMMUNITY: Armed Forces Community Support.
We also welcome Op FORTITUDE, an Office for Veterans' Affairs initiative to end veteran homelessness, and Operation Stirling, an Age UK and Fighting with Pride service to support LGBT+ veterans, into the veteran support field. You can find out more about these initiatives below. We hope that these new services will offer valuable support to veterans of the UK Armed Forces.
With 5 July 2023 marking the 75th birthday of the NHS, we were delighted that in the same week the Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance (VCHA) announced that 75% of trusts across England are now Veteran Aware accredited. Thank you to all colleagues from the VCHA and accredited NHS trusts for their dedication to support improved care for the Armed Forces community. Our next brief will be in September, in the meantime, we hope you manage to take some well earned rest this summer.
The Ministry of Defence and Office for Veterans' Affairs are building an application process to support the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card rollout later this year. They want to hear your views on this.
The Armed Forces Covenant website now hosts a Duty Toolkit, with reference documents, guides, resources and training material to help explain the legal Duty aspect of the Armed Forces Covenant. Please visit: Armed Forces Covenant Duty toolkit - Armed Forces Covenant for further information.
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