Combat Stress News - In Touch, Spring 2013

These pages give further info on our services — both in treatment centres and through the outreach teams.

InTouch WWW.COMBATSTRESS.ORG.UK | SUMMER 2013

W Facing my demons

ELCOME to the summer edition of In Touch, featuring details of all our services, at our treatment centres or in the community. If you already know about Combat Stress’s services, why not pass this copy of In Touch along to someone who might need us?

Art therapy: instrumental in helping Richard Kidgell to cope THE Spring edition of Combat Stress News highlighted how valuable art therapy can be for many Veterans at our Tyrwhitt House Treatment Centre.

Art therapy is a clinical treatment where sessions are structured, often addressing difficult and traumatic memories, and it runs alongside other treatments during a Veteran’s stay.

Richard Kidgell, a Veteran at Combat Stress since 2004, found the programme immensely helpful for his recovery and believes that through the benefits of art

Richard Kidgell and Jan Lobban

therapy he can cope with the challenges of everyday life.

“Direct access to my subconscious mind broke through years of rigid selfdiscipline,” Richard says, “and released suppressed emotions and suppressed memories, so that they could be dealt with at last.”

A positive future Richard’s proud to have been involved in the Art & Healing Exhibition, which ran in London from April to June 2013. Richard’s work appeared at the main venue, Street Gallery at University College Hospital, and the satellite venue, the London Art Therapy Centre.

Richard has found that through art therapy he can be involved, to a greater extent, by giving something back and helping others on their journey to

JOIN THE COMBAT STRESS ONLINE COMMUNITY! For latest news and to share your views – like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @CombatStress.

We’d love to hear from you.

READER SURVEY

RESULTS

recovery. At the London Art Therapy Centre, Richard participated in a panel discussion about the art on display, something he wouldn’t normally have been able to do.

Combat Stress is confident that Richard will continue to use the skills he has learned in his art therapy sessions to manage his recovery and ensure his future well-being.

Richard will continue to use the skills he learned during the art therapy sessions

A BIG thank you to everyone who took the time to give us feedback to our reader survey following the spring launch of In Touch.

A resounding 98% of you told us that In Touch is relevant and interesting. We got 42 fantastic detailed comments and many suggestions for making it even better.

A lot of you want us to cover really practical matters – you’ll find a handy guide to PTSD overleaf.

Others asked for more lighthearted stories from real people, so we hope you enjoy Richard Kidgell’s experience of art therapy.

We’re now looking for more of your input for In Touch, and would like to include comments and writing from Veterans – something a couple of people from the survey said would be really helpful. If you’d like to share your story – funny or otherwise – please get in touch using the contact details given at the bottom of the page overleaf or speak with your key worker.

Calling all bargain hunters!

VETERANS, Service personnel and Reservists, plus their partners, can now join a new website rewardsforforces.co.uk, which offers discounts and benefits not available to the general public. The

areas covered include restaurants, theme parks and attractions, health and fitness, high street retailers, football clubs, car hire, holiday and travel insurance and more. It’s free to join and you can

also apply for a Rewards for Forces ID card to make it easy for shops and services to help you save around £500-£1,000 per year.

We’d really like to know what you think about this newsletter — please email your comments to feedback@combatstress.org.uk

News round-up

We have started to look at offering some services at more locations to ensure more of you can access help.

Listening and learning

Here are the facts at your fingertips…

Combat Stress’s Veterans tell us how they feel about our residential courses AT the end of each stay, we ask each Veteran to fill in a confidential survey telling us what they thought of their treatment. We use their answers to make our services better at our three treatment centres. Looking at all the answers we received, it looks like we’re doing well in some areas, but could try harder in others.

Most Veterans who come for a treatment programme tell us they feel welcome and they like the accommodation.

Many also say that they feel included in planning their treatment and have a lot of choice over what groups they can attend, or not, as the case may be.

We’ve set ourselves a target of 70% of Veterans telling us we’re doing a good job but just missed that target on the important goal of taking

people’s views seriously.

However, we just made the target for making Veterans feel comfortable in telling us what they thought when they

were here. So we’ve taken these results on board and we’ll get better at listening and encouraging everyone to say what needs to be said.

SURVEY ANSWERS BY VETERANS

Treatment The goal of the treatment is to reduce the emotional and physical symptoms of PTSD. That makes every day easier to live and a person can begin to cope with the event that triggered their PTSD. Treatment may involve psychotherapy (a type of counselling), medication, or both. Psychotherapy for PTSD involves helping the person learn skills to manage symptoms and develop ways of coping. Therapy also aims to teach the person and his or her family about the disorder, and help the person work through the fears associated with the traumatic event.

A variety of psychotherapies are used, but all of them help a person to: • Recognise and change thoughts that pop up and interfere with life • Confront the traumatic event in a safe environment • Take a good look at the emotions and feelings caused by the trauma • Get the family involved so they can help each other

Your Combat Stress IN this summer’s Combat Stress News we’re very pleased to share the new logo for Combat Stress that came from talking to our Veterans, staff and donors.

Early on we did some in-depth interviews with Veterans – some of them knew about Combat Stress, while others didn’t. We

Need to explain PTSD?

also looked at the feedback given when we were reworking the Combat Stress website.

From there, some concepts were developed and then taken to Hollybush House, Audley Court and Tyrwhitt House to see what staff and Veterans thought of them. Some people felt very strongly about how the logo should look and what it should mean to Veterans, supporters and people seeing it for the first time. We had to

NEWS

find a way to work with some very different opinions but some strong themes came out and we think the new logo shows Combat Stress as a professional and modern organisation that’s proud of its heritage and the men and women we work with.

We couldn’t have done this without the help of the Veterans who took the time to talk to us about what Combat Stress means to them. Thank you.

• Work within a group of people who have been through the same experience

What is the outlook?

Recovery from PTSD is a gradual and ongoing process. It may not go away completely but treatment can help people learn to cope more effectively and get back to an ordinary life. This year, 780 Veterans who have been through our programmes are now well enough not to need us any more.

Call the Combat Stress 24-hour Helpline on 0800 138 1619.

Alternatively, text 07537 404 719 or email combat.stress@rethink.org